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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22819987">Heroes and Dragons</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenWingDark/pseuds/RavenWingDark'>RavenWingDark</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dungeons &amp; Dragons (Roleplaying Game), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>3 dimensional OC, 5e, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Character Development, Crossover, Developing Friendships, Extremely dnd typical backstory, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Smart protagonist, Strategy, Whump, Wizard, becomes a hero, dnd character is transported to BNHA universe, dnd tactics, izuku midoriya is a gift, she goes by dnd rules</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 12:07:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>28,085</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22819987</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/RavenWingDark/pseuds/RavenWingDark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Michaela Greyfen, prospective adventurer and acerbic level 1 Wizard, is suddenly hurtled across planes into Musutafu, Japan and undergoes her new quest to attend and graduate at UA. But unlike her new classmates, her end goal isn't to be a hero, if fact, she has a hard time buying into heroics careers. She has a few things to do--find who's pulling the strings, and why; survive until she can finish the plot thread; and maybe even keep the idiots in her class alive while she's at it.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A child of four years first found her calling for fire in a way rather different than many other prospective adventurers. She first stoked the flames, away from the safe supervision of her parents. Waited until the red fire rolled blue in the middle. She pulled on the heavy metal tongs, like she’d seen them do, managed to secure them with her chubby fingers around a chuck of unpurified glass, and brought it to the flames.</p>
<p>She stood too close, as the glass began to glow and the colors of fire reflected in her pale green eyes. When her parents returned from selling their wares to merchants visiting the guild hall, they were both horrified and proud to find that their young daughter had created what a small glass figurine that could be recognized as a bird in flight.</p>
<p>In the next years, they taught her their trade, and when they went to the guild to sell, she sold hers as well. When she was twelve, she was granted membership to the Slateport Artisans under her own name. Her mother took her to the guild master, Josiah Whisperfoot, an older halfling who she’d grown up thinking of as something between a boss and a grandfather and undid the knot on a cloth holding a dozen trinkets, smooth, well-shaped, distinctive. A large weasel, posed as if hunting, with colored glass and intelligent amber eyes; large glass feathers, in black, blue, and orange that shone gently with different hues when he brought them to better light; a delicate glass pine tree; a series of fat mountain goats; a cawing raven that stood balanced on its arching talons and tail; a drunken gnome holding a massive mug to his mouth; and a collection of carved wooden dolls, charming in their authentic simplicity--the simplicity of a child with a craft of someone much more experienced. He took the time to admire each work, before smiling and the girl and presenting her own guild card—made in engraved metal, the Guildmaster’s own speciality.Michaela Greyfen—an official Craftsman of the Slateport Artisans Guild.</p>
<p>Sometimes, while, in her carving or charging sand in the furnace’s crucible, her mother would stop, sit on her heels, skirts brushing the sediment from the workshop’s floor,and watch her daughter quietly,tuck the girl’s green hair from her face as her focus never shifted. Her mother watched as worked the glass into the shape she willed it with precise, easy movements, perfectly mirroring her parents. Her father called her the “Hot Shop imp” when she would be slow to leave the workshop for dinner.</p>
<p>Michaela loved the life. She didn’t have to go to school, the work was hard, the living easy, and it was quiet—just her and her parents and the sound of the blowpipe, the scrape of her mother’s knife against obsidian, and the ever-present crackle of the furnaces. She loved the heat of the flame, there was something about wielding something so wild and natural and using it to create art and tools and whatever she needed.It was a constant presence, one thatkept them warm, and helped them put food on the table. A constant presence It was the fourth member of their home.</p>
<p>She had a dream too—to be a master glassmith, the best in the guild, then master other materials too. When Michaelaasked to try out metallurgy next, her mother considered it carefully before offering a compromise. After all, “patience and care with glasssmithing will prevent burns, just like it will in life. Not long my dearest, when you’re a little older we’ll find you a master.”</p>
<p>Michaela never learned to metalsmith. The chance was stolen from her, among much else. When the red dragon attacked, her dreams shattered like her glass. <em>Idrul</em>, they shouted in the streets. <em>After all these years, Idrul has come for us! </em>The shouting did not last for long. Michaela and her parents watched from the window as the guild crackled and caved but the dragon didn’t kill them that long, long night. It wasn’t until the hours after the dragon razed most the city and the sky was thick with smog, that pillagers came. And the house burned.</p>
<p>Michaela had once heard Guildmaster Josiah say that humans lived too fast. As a young girl she called him out on his muttered words— here she was, living just as slowly as he was right in front of him. As an orphan at thirteen, she started to have an idea. What could a human or halfling or gnome think of themselves, if they were just a snap of the fingers in a Dragon’s point of view? What could a commoner hope for in the face of such insurmountable adversity?</p>
<p>Wandering through the rubble of the district she’d known all her life, in a city once built high with coloful towers, she found strangers singing song on quiet nights. Many gathered around visiting bards as they sang tale of adventuring heroes, saving man and maiden from cruel fate. “And these heroes, who harness limb and vine, the panthenon’s divine might, fists of iron, they are said to come to the most selfless people, who have nothing, but still give to those with little,” the bard parts from the string of his lute to give a modest bow,set his hat on the ground in front of him. A few copper pieces are frettfully offered by some of the audience and the rest dispell quietly.</p>
<p>Michaela stands from where she was sitting on a plank of wood from a pulled-apart carriage. She marched over to the bard, who dropped the copper into his pocket and set his hat on his head. “You stole from those people, you tricked them.” She had watched him carefully, she <em>knew.</em></p>
<p>The bard chuckled. “I didn’t lie, I told them a story. I told them to listen and I gave them hope. And hope’s worth more than three copper, don’t you think?”</p>
<p>Michaela’s mouth opened and closed at that. Her voice came out more a desperate squeak, her dirty hand grabbing his sleeve tight. “What can they do with that? It can’t feed them.”</p>
<p>The bard sighed, pushing her fingers off his coat firmly, though vibrant, it was a little frayed. “Maybe you’re too young to understand. Do you know what you would you do if you had hope?” He didn’t wait for her answer, he turned around, hopped over a broken wheel in the street, and continued on. She watched him until he disappeared from view.</p>
<p>If an adventurer came, she’d have hope. She decided that if a hero came to help them she would hope again. But weeks passed and people stagnated without that hope. And the dread inside her made her think, maybe there was something to the bard’s words. What would the others do with a little hope? What would she do with hope? And slowly the question stopped being that, and became ‘What can I do to create hope?’ And the cycle began again.</p>
<p>She wasn’t yet fourteen when she left her city for the next town, then the next, and joined their academy for magic. For the first time, she was opening a spellbook and refining her script in Common, Elven, and even Sylvan. She wasn’t allowed any of the tools she might have used glassmithing, but she was fine with that, fire was a siren, beautiful, tempting, vicious, and hungry.</p>
<p>Just under two years of study, she became a first level wizard, she could hold fire again, a controlled fasimilie of forge and draconian fire. She had built something like a normal life back up, she had a proper aspiration—adventurer—and one moment she was walking down the corridors to the conjuration library and the next, she’s in…nothingness.</p>
<p>Fluid space, and her body doesn’t feel quite corporeal and she’s seeing <em>visions </em>flash past her eyes. Stilted images of a broad blond haired man with a goliath frame but a friendly smile, of another built man with fire flickering across his skin without burning. Of a creature, or man, masked and dressed in black with tubes coming out of him facing off with the blond man. A clash. The blond man curled on the ground, skeletal in frame, like a druegar. He looks up at his enemy, blood pouring from his mouth. Other strangely dressed people watch in stunned horror. The man’s fists curl and he’s pulled his emaciated frame up to stand, and something like a blur appears behind him and everything goes red. The visions fade. There is only the sound of hard breathing, and even then, it fades.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Michaela jerks awake on cement, as a car the speed of a level 20 monk and the size of a bugbear barbarian swerves with a screech and hurtles past her with a honk. She grabs at her heart and gasps and pulls herself out of the street, flashes of the vision playing behind her eyes. She works her way into the grass, too disoriented to look for somewhere to hide from the mechanical beast. <em>Who were those men? Where am I? Why— </em>The terrifying look in the emaciated man’s eyes—not rage, it was something else. She could read it off his face—desperation, determination—something else? He’d gone from a massive form to nearly nothing, like he’d been attacked by <em>Vampiric Touch </em>over and over again. Then who was the necromancer fighting him? She didn’t have answers. Even as hard as she concentrated nothing more came to her.</p>
<p>She stands, pulls herself together, moves aimlessly. She’s in a city, one much more compact, loud, and busy than Slateport had been. No one dresses like she does, in Snapdrake Academy robes, and there are so many people. The words she heard before being shifted, she jolts for her spellbook, a thin silver and blue tome, and jots down fragments of phrases she heard, but it’s hard to remember past the panic she felt during and after. Then, like the adventurer she was aiming to be, she gathered her wits and went to explore. The voices around her were speaking Common, a slightly different accent, but Common all the same. She’d never heard of such a place, though, she feared she was very far from where she started.</p>
<p>She first caught the plot thread by stepping on the #1 Hero’s face. When she removed her foot from the crumpled flyer, the bright colors catch her attention and Michaela stoops to pick it up and investigate. It was colored so it couldn’t have been created by a press that the head researchers of the academy allegedly has access to. If it was handmade, a great deal of skill and craftsmanship must have gone into it, and why would it have been left on the ground in an alley? If it was magic, it could be done, but she couldn’t think of a spell that did this in any of her research. Running a finger over dry yellow ink, she froze, comprehending what she hadn’t seen on the page previously. The bottom banner, under the text, <em>“YUUEI HERO ACADEMY — UA ENTRANCE EXAM — DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES? — APPLICATIONS START NOW — EXAM DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED” </em>Just below the block letters, was an ensemble of more strangely dressed humans, or humanoids, rendered lined up but in different action poses, as if the images were taken out of different situations. And in the middle was the grinning face of the blond-haired man from her vision. She almost dropped the flyer in surprise, but managed to slap her hands on either side before it fell on the ground again. He looked healthy and strong, not like he was a few rounds from death. It hadn’t happened yet. Whatever that event was that she’d seen hadn’t happened yet. She had a clue. She needed to know more about this ‘UA.’</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. One Step Closer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She knows she’s not a true adventurer because it takes her nearly a week—to coerce an innkeep to rent her a room by herself—not on a nightly basis, but monthly; to figure out how to navigate crossing the gray channels the “cars” ride in and use the train and find her way through Musutafu; not to expect races other than humans, but not reach for her components pouch in alarm when she sees humans with demonic or monstrous qualities; to convert most her gold and silver to Yen; and start looking into UA. Her first attempt was fruitless. On a busy street, she shouted out to a boy a few years older than herself.</p><p>“Hey you, tell me where to get the UA application!”</p><p>The boy looked incredulously back at her, not stopping. “Look it up.”</p><p><em>Look it up? </em>Of course, if this prestigious academy had the repute it seemed to, it must be as old as the Elves. So she found a library and began to study. She still wasn’t able to find out what she needed to know, beyond some of UA’s history. As far as she could tell, there was no town crier. Even the thickest tomes didn’t advise on the exam ritual date nor where to apply.</p><p>One book did have the address and she showed up only to find the campus was entirely walled in and there was no way for her to enter at this point. Her attempts to bribe the wall guard were met with her being escorted away from the campus. Her last school had taken her in from the doorstep after they tested for intelligence and aptitude.</p><p>Back to the library then—upon asking the library’s scholars they would continually and frustratedly bring her to a propped up black mirror-like drunken scent-hounds. Completely at her wits end, and after losing her temper and yelling at the librarian, she put a frail fifth plan into place. When, in the pursuit of information, places of knowledge fail you, try a gathering place. People are stores of knowledge as much as books. The one she entered wasn’t a tavern. She almost wouldn’t have figured it out, just by the name, Cyber Beans. Where was the Drunken Goat, or Gold Minotaur, or Parched Dolphin? The naming convention just didn’t match up.</p><p>Still, Cyber Beans was seemingly popular in Musutafu but nowhere else she had been. Coffee: She decided she really did like it, and it helped that it was more readily available for a fifteen-year-old too.</p><p>She almost saw a tavern in this place, the ambient noise, people shuffling around to get their beverages. Even if she’d only had a hard drink a few times in her life, it was something familiar, something she could work with. There were more of those black mirror boxes, but they were lit up with an array of colors, like the signs for trains or on the sides of buildings. A man was having a coffee (the sub-type of beverage wasn’t clear), scrolling through <em>text. </em>She grinned. Game-changer. There were no open machines, so she moved in a slow circle around the shop, observing carefully. Some were watching moving pictures, others reading text and writings in various formats, they all seemed bored enough. Her nineteen perception was enough to catch it when an older blonde girl tensed up slightly as she looked at her screen. The screen flickered out of black background and green text though her fingers didn’t seem to move.</p><p>Michaela headed over to the NPC. “Did you just control that word box?”</p><p>“The…computer?” Her tone is a little flat. Michaela gives a nod of affirmation. “Are you trying to snitch? It’s not anything important, my quirk just lets me…look around.”</p><p>“I’m not ‘snitching.’ You have skills I don’t have and I need your help.”</p><p>“What—”</p><p>Michaela looked toward the barista. “Boxkeeper, a—” Michaela scrunched her nose at the menu behind him. Oh, that wasn’t Common. “A <em>la-tee?”</em> She requested loudly.</p><p>“Are you trying to draw attention to me right now?” The blonde girl hissed sharply, her hand grabbing Michaela’s wrist tightly. The wizard suppressed showing any intimidation from this girl, whom she realized had about three years on her and at least as many inches.</p><p>“Only kind of. I saw you manipulate that box—<em>computer</em>. I can pay.”</p><p>“Get lost, kid.”</p><p>Michaela, still with a wrist caught by the girl, reached across her body to pull a gold coin from her pouch and place it in front of her. The girl stared. The hand released her wrist. “If you can really help, it’ll be worth your time.”</p><hr/><p>The girl had moved them to the park across the street for ‘discretion.’ She looked impatient but interested and the secondary location was fine with her especially since she didn’t have a keen-eyed look-out for snoopers.</p><p>“I’m applying to Yuuei Academy.”</p><p>The girl’s eyebrow rose and she crossed her arms.</p><p>“I need you to find me the application and exam date.”</p><p>“Wait, what? You need me to do that? You know you can look that up in five seconds, right?”</p><p>“It’s on those computers, that’s why I need you.”</p><p>The girl’s mouth opened and closed in shock. “I have a tech quirk, I can manipulate software with my mind. You said I could control the computer, you didn’t mean that I could, just, operate a computer did you? You don’t know how?</p><p>“I don’t,” Michaela nodded sagely.</p><p>“What kind of luddite…” She trailed off, head in hand. “Fine, I’ll look it up for you.” Three minutes later, she had swooped into a small office buildingand came back with a printed application and the UA test date. “Well, nice working with you.”</p><p>Michaela leafed through the papers, scanning them in moments. “I need medical and school records?”</p><p>The girl already had her bag slung across her shoulder and walking down the path, a gold richer. “Yes?”</p><p>“I don’t have those.”</p><p>“Too bad, you’re on your own.”</p><p>“Help me. I have more gold.”</p><p>The blonde stopped walking. Then turned her head. “You’re applying for a school for superkids. You realize you’re offering me money to do something illegal right?”</p><p>Michaela nodded grimly. It may be illegal, but it wasn’t wrong, not for the end goal. “Help me with the paperwork I need. After that, I can get in on my own merits. Just on this first page, I have three issues. Namely, I don’t exactly have ‘legal guardians’. If this ‘quirk’ of yours can help, I need it.”</p><p>“What?” The girl seemed caught between a balk of disbelief and irritation radiating from her deep frown.</p><p>“Do you think you could forge those documents?”</p><p>“Hack?” She walked back up to Michaela, turning the gold coin over in her hand. “Uh, yeah, if it’s just some middle school records, I’m willing to do that. You’re going to have to officially register your quirk, I’m not good enough to fake that, and honestly, I’m not willing to, no matter how much gold you have. Give me your number, I’ll contact you when once I’ve started. I’ll need your quirk paperwork by then to make sure it matches up.”</p><p>“What do you mean my number?”</p><p>“As in your phone? You don’t have a phone either? Are you sure you’re okay? Living alone as a middle schooler. You know what—your business.Just meet me at this same café tomorrow, same time. I’ll have what we need done by then. But you’re just expecting to get the police to accept your existence with just some vague middle school records?”</p><p>“I don’t another option, do I?” Michaela said, eyebrow quirking.</p><p>The blonde couldn’t help but think this strange green-haired girl had a lot of confidence for how little she seemed to know. Still, she seemed to think she could get Quirk documentation and identification from the government, like it was some easy accomplishment. She almost had to be impressed. “Huh. Yeah. What’s your name?”</p><p>“Michaela Greyfen.”</p><p>The blonde girl’s smirk returned. She held out her hand.“Everyone calls me Akida.”</p><hr/><p>Michaela found a <em>koban</em> to register her quirk at. Hopefully the fewer officers there, the less people there would be to ask questions. She had to polish the rust off of her diplomacy skills but a humble 13 deception had the officer at least willing to help her, even if he was extremely skeptical.</p><p>“I know I should have registered my Quirk by now, but my parents are very private but I want to enroll in hero school so I really need to get my paperwork settled.”</p><p>After over twenty minutes of exhaustingly circular questions, not only to fill out the paperwork but also to satisfy the nosy cop’s curiosity.And when he looked her up, sure enough, middle school records pulled up.Akida had fulfilled her part of the deal again. Michaela flashed the policeman a bright, relieved grin. “I lost my ID, I don’t suppose you could help me print one out too?” The natural twenty supported by a casting of <em>Friends</em> had him printing her out a temporary ID for just a small fee without her background check being finalized.</p><p>Michaela turned the paper card ID over in her hands, leaving the <em>koban </em>in a rush, after all the cantrip only lasted a minute. Still, she had gotten more than she had expected. Of course, she wasn’t sure how the documents Akida had given her would hold up, but she doubted she would be getting that real ID anytime soon. Her identity here was flimsy, paper, fake, and without any substance. Not like the old engraved metal guild card that sat heavy in her jacket.</p><p>For now, between herself and this Akida she would have to trust that their best would be enough, or else she would need to find another way into UA, perhaps as a janitor.</p><hr/><p>She got to the same park across from the coffee shop soon after, to see the blonde girl, wearing a knee-length dress and a leather jacket, her hair in braids, frowning into the middle distance. When she spotted Michaela, she handed her a paper with her middle school records and family information. Good, Michaela was wondering if she should know have that information memorized.</p><p>“It’s in the city database too. If they look too close, they can poke it full of holes, I didn’t do anything federal,” she warns, flipping a braid over her shoulder. “Since it doesn’t look like you’ve been arrested, I assume you registered your Quirk?”</p><p>“Not only that.” Michaela procured the temporary ID. Akida’s eyes widened as she snatched it from Michaela’s hands.</p><p>“How did you even get this? Seriously are they handing these out like candy?” She examined it more closely. “Limited Arcana? That’s really vague. I mean mine’s called Tech Sense, which is a way better description for my tech telepathy. Do you really want me to just write Limited Arcana?”</p><p>“That’s the closest I get to what I have. I can do a little of a lot of things.” Michaela patted her spellbook in her messenger bag in satisfaction.</p><p>“What’s in there? I didn’t think anybody needed an item for their quirk.”</p><p>“Quirk this, quirk that. It’s really confusing what people can and can’t do with those? Why can’t someone have a ‘magic’ quirk and cast a variety of spells from a spellbook?”</p><p>Akida’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re not saying that it isn’t a quirk, are you?”</p><p>“I’ll leave that up to your imagination.”</p><p>Akida’s disbelief warped into irritation, a commonplace for her. “I’m not sure if you’re crazy or you’re trying to be a special snowflake, but your forms are done.”</p><hr/><p>Twelve days later, Michaela goes back to Cyber Beans, finds Akida working on some project and reaches past her to put the letter against the monitor.Akida jumps sharply in her chair, shoving her headphones off with a growl of irritation. Then she takes a closer look, her eyes widen and she looks at the arrogant smile on Michaela’s face. —<em>MS. GREYFEN WE ARE PLEASED TO ADVISE YOU THAT YOUR PRELIMINARY APPLICATION HAS BEEN ACCEPTED.</em> — She’ll be taking the UA entrance exam.</p><hr/><p>As the bell rung, Michaela raced into the arena with the others, spreading off as soon as she could. The arena was a large cityscape big enough to be a full downtown in a normal city. A city overrun by robots the size of compact cars, that is. Clawing at buildings, knocking into each other, turning to the examinees.</p><p>Michaela quickly found herself in close quarters with a level 3 robot. “<em>Shocking Grasp.”</em></p><p>Lightning fizzled and crackled in her hand in a second, and when she delivered the attack, the robot shuddered and sparked. She must be in unusual form for all the damage the cantrip seemed to do. She backed away—added benefit, no attacks of opportunity. And when the robot swung back at her, she managed a little ‘eep!’ and ducked under it. Another shocking grasp delivered by the tip of her finger and she began to realize she wasn’t getting anywhere with this for the risk she was taking. The robot had already decked another examinee who’d gone the same direction as her. Wizards, excluding Blade Song, of course, were the last ones to be in melee range.</p><p>“<em>Magic Missile.” </em>Michaela stuck out her hand as small bending lasers appeared from behind her and arced toward the robot front, back, and side, burrowing through the sheet metal as the robot short-circuited and crumpled to the ground.</p><p>Behind it was another robot, a level 1, Michaela barely registered stumbling back from a swing at her stomach, loosing a firebolt on instinct that hit and only slightly charred the metal. Evidently, the robot didn’t like that, because its next blow came from above, where it slammed into her head, knocking her to the ground next to the downed R3 with heavy force. Michaela tried to gather herself as she saw spots float across her vision like Dancing Lights. This was just a R1 robot. This was designed for students in an exam in a world where combat was more restricted to the young. They were supposed to be pulling punches but she was a wizard. A seven hit point wizard, which, she gathered was much less than what the others had, if their health was even measured that way. And one hit had taken her to just under half. Sure, she was working a little faster than the others, but they were less than a minute into the exam. Mage Armor was the best option to keep her up, but it was a gamble that the extra 3 AC would make the difference that an offensive spell couldn’t. She wasn’t exactly interested in Abjuration school.</p><p>She stumbled back a step before catching herself. “<em>Firebolt</em>!” It was still up, and there wasn’t very much creative liberty with a level 1 spellcaster. Another miss from the robot and Michaela realized she’d taken too long defeating it. An R3 was headed toward her. Michaela’s heart hammered in her chest. Even simple unconsciousness risked permadeath. But that was an adventurer did. The only difference here was that she didn’t have party members to get her back up, and she’d never been a full adventurer anyway.</p><p>She took her time to disengage from the smaller robot. Now with both robots following her, she still managed to stay out of melee range due to their slower speed. Ten feet didn’t exactly make her feel safe, but she took the moments to mutter the arcane words for <em>Magic Missile </em>again. One missile shot off toward the creaking smaller robot, making it short-circuit, the other two riddled holes into the R3’s heavier armor but it wasn’t enough to stop it from moving forward. And that was the last of her spells. She huffed, wiping sweat from her forehead at the sudden expenditure of her magic, the disconnect from magic as she felt as if the well of arcana inside her was dried. <em>There isn’t going to be another chance, I need to do everything I can to succeed here.</em></p><p>The novice wizard began to climb a pile to rubble from a wall that had come down with the explosions of another student. She managed to get fifteen feet up, then turned around and shouted. “Zen!” The wizard’s familiar, an orange leopard gecko appeared just behind the robot, which was slowly clawing at the pile of rubble.The gecko’s leaf green eyes shifted onto the towering robot, jumped from the rubble it had just climbed out from under, and landed on the robot’s clawed foot. At the same moment, Michaela pressed herself against the rubble to free her hand to cast <em>Shocking Grasp</em>, but instead channeling the energy through her telepathic connection with her familiar. The robot creaked and groaned under the shock from the three-ounce gecko coursed through its wires and the tangerine gecko took his leave without an attack of opportunity because of the cantrip’s handy little extra effect on metal creatures. The robot’s arms swung down on the pile, which shivered but Michaela stuck her arms into the debris on instinct. Even a fall from this height could knock her out. She hung on and once the shaking stopped, her ears pricked at a faint sound that carried across the sounds of warping metal and fighting all around.</p><p><em>Stay out of the way until I need you again, </em>she sent a telepathic message to Zen, feeling him confirm back. Not that a second use was likely, with the action it took to find and bring her familiar back to her location.</p><p>She scrambled up the rest of the rubble and looked around, trying to find the decidedly humanoid cry for help. She spotted the source another thirty feet away—it was what looked like a pink tiefling, with her torso trapped under half a robot. Michaela made my way over to her immediately. She had no idea how she’d heard this girl because she wasn’t yelling, it looked like maybe she couldn’t, with all that weight on her torso.</p><p>“Can you move?” Michaela asked quietly as she approached and crouched by the girl’s head.  She flinched, as if she hadn’t realized someone else was there. Then she shook her head.</p><p>“I’m totally pinned,” she panted, pushing weakly against the wrecked machine. This was too familiar to the wizard. People stuck under rubble in Slateport. She hadn’t been able to help, had been too numb to even try.</p><p>Michaela braced against the rubble and tried to push up, but almost immediately, her arms start shaking and her hands start burning too. She loses her footing slightly and stops, looking down at her reddening hands. She hadn’t noticed before, but the paint on the robot was partially melting off and there were holes through the metal. It looked like acid damage. An acid tiefling? Well, alright. Bigger things to worry about, namely, why a perfectly good (albeit spell-less) wizard was trying to solve a problem with strength. If she were on her own plane, she’d be the mockery of her academy. Hadn’t she seen a few successful rescues in the hours following the attacks?</p><p>Michaela could hear the robot slamming into the pile of concentrate and bent metal again. Something must have snapped in the base of the pile because everything began to shift and slope. <em>Dragon. </em>Michaela’s first, intrusive, illogical thought. Michaela grabbed onto the girl, who grabbed her own arm with a vice grip until the shift subsided. They were both shaking slightly not that Michaela would ever admit it. The robot was now slowly climbing the slope. Looking around, Michaela found a metal bar that had been exposed with the earth shift. She wedged it under the downed robot carapace and put all her weight into pushing on it. The metal groaned and scratched but didn’t dislodge more than a few inches. She could see the top of the level 3 robot now as it continued to push up the mountain of scrap. Even her full weight wasn’t enough.</p><p>Someone with purple hair darted by. The wizard reached into her components pouch and a drew a line of pigment across her cheek in mere seconds. She’d deal with the retribution later. “Wait,” Michaela called out to him. “Help me.” With her words, she channeled her energy into <em>Friends. </em>It may have been worth it not to switch out the cantrip after all. The purple-haired boy turned around slowly to look at her. His hair was mussed and unbrushed, and his eyes told of many sleepless nights. He looked like he was going to argue for a moment, then he gave her a blank nod and came to the other side of the rebar.</p><p>“1, 2, 3,” They both pushed down, shifting the metal carapace enough the tiefling could pull out from under it and hop back on her feet with a gasp of thanks. She wasn’t putting very much weight on that leg.</p><p>Michaela’s eyes flickered to the purple-haired boy, whose face seemed to be changing to disturbed confusion, and she began running in the opposite direction before she could find out what he would do in retaliation of the charm effect.</p><p>Just a few minutes to rack up points left now, she didn’t have the time to stand around chatting.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Livewire</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Oblivion faded as her consciousness was returned by a <em>thunk-thunk-thunk </em>at the door. Michaela reveled in the moment of peace before she felt all the aches and pains running up and down her body. She rolled over on her couch, burying her face in the crease of her old couch. Smelled like moths…and beer? Where did she buy it again?</p>
<p>
  <em>Thunk-Thunk.</em>
</p>
<p>Here someone was interrupting her in the middle of her long rest. And kicking the door, by the sound of it. “Who is it?” The wizard’s groan was muffled by the couch.</p>
<p>“Livewire.”</p>
<p>“Who?”</p>
<p>“Livewire, it’s my hero name, just testing it out, since my client is going to be one soon. Let me in?” The voice called from outside the door.</p>
<p>“Livewire, huh? Feels like someone would already have that one. Zen, let Akida in.” Michaela’s familiar appeared on the floor in a small flash of light and climbed the door and doorknob, and walking backwards to turn the knob enough that old lock unengaged. Akida shoved it the rest of the way and the gecko blinked away again before he could be inadvertently slammed into the wall.</p>
<p>“Whoa, you look like a mess. And this building looks like it’ll collapse at any minute by the way-- Did I mention applying to a hero school was going to be tough?”</p>
<p>“How did you find me?” Their plan was to meet tomorrow morning at the Cyber Beans so Michaela could deliver the last installment of gold.</p>
<p>“Even with someone with as little of an internet footprint as you, it wasn’t too hard. I barely had to hack anything to find the information I needed. So, the entrance exam?” She sat down in the worn armchair and put her feet up on the table.</p>
<p>“Robots. There were robots.” Michaela pulled her head from the couch cushion and reached over to grab abag of melted ice and pressed it to her head ineffectually. It didn’t have any healing properties but the smoochy nurse had insisted on it, and it had certainly eased the pressure headache in her skull while it was cold.</p>
<p>“Eh. That sounds…challenging.”</p>
<p>“I took down between six and a dozen of them. But I got knocked out near the end. I think there was a minute or so still on the clock? So I don’t know how I’m going to do.”</p>
<p>Akida hummed sympathetically. “Heroes aren’t known for fainting, but well, who knows? Worse case scenario you go to real people school like the rest of the world. So, want to get food or something, your treat?” She’d given up on the idea of UA uncomfortably quickly for Michaela, who thought even waiting another year might as well be another lifetime. If she failed now, that plot thread was done, everything was so here-and-now she couldn’t bear to wait.</p>
<p>Michaela shook her head. “I can only do light activity for less than an hour or else I have to restart my long rest and I have two points of exhaustion to sleep off. Your gold is on the table.”</p>
<p>“You’ve got a weird way of saying you’re too tired, but alright, I get it.” She drummed the couch cushion above Michaela’s head, picked up the gold as she walked by, and she stopped at the door. “Oh, Greyfen?”</p>
<p>She hummed back in response.</p>
<p>“I’m ninety-five percent sure you failed.”</p>
<p>“Fuck you.”</p>
<p>Michaela didn’t process the other girl’s laugh as she was asleep before she heard the click.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The hero teachers were two hours into the annual entrance exam conference. Suffice to say, the results were as interesting as the had expected, after the organized chaos the exam had been last week.</p>
<p>Midnight hit a remote and the projector switched to paused shot of a girl with medium-length, wavy green hair, an intense look in her eye as electricity sparked in her hand as she faced off a robot.</p>
<p>Midnight read from her laptop, the heroes looking up to the screen again. “Michaela Greyfen, quirk Limited Arcana. Totaling villain 16 points, our judges decided to award her 7 rescue points for her actions.” The video was unpaused, starting to play through edited clips of some of her spells, getaways, a zoom-in replay of her <em>shocking grasp, </em>delivered through a small gecko, the rescue of Ashido Mina, as well as some of her attacks that had missed their mark.</p>
<p>“Her score just puts her in the running for Class 1-A. Rescue points were from convincing another student, Hitoshi Shinsou, into assisting her. The last few minutes of the exam were weaker, quickly leaving the other students and delivering small guerrilla attacks on various robots.” The clip showed a level three robot, swatting her aside into a pile of rubble, from which she didn’t rise. Seconds later, the exam timer went off. The teachers grimaced and Midnight flicked back to the thumbnail of her footage. Two students getting severely injured in the exam had been no one’s goal. One student had hurt themselves and the other had taken an unexpected amount of damage from the robot’s swing.</p>
<p>“She didn’t do anything incredibly flashy, but her variety of abilities with her quirk will keep any villain on their toes, even she lacks in sheer firepower or endurance” Present Mic piped up after a moment.</p>
<p>“Her quirk let her use distance fire attacks and close up electricity, with very little variation to those specific abilities. She may just need a more creative mind to cultivate her quirk,” Principal Nedzu said. He gestured a paw at the stack of papers piled in front of Aizawa, Present Mic, Vlad King, Cementoss, and Midnight. “We’ve already concluded that all examinees we’re talking about have UA potential. I can’t deny it’s not a good sign she lost consciousness, but as we just decided with Midoriya Izuku, it isn’t a disqualification in itself.”</p>
<p>All Might nodded along, all too eagerly.</p>
<p>“Would that then make her a good candidate for a general studies student?” Aizawa pressed.</p>
<p>“She showed courage in assisting another examinee, and they worked together. She was able to persuade another student, who had been struggling against the robots throughout the test, to assist. I believe what she lacks in stamina she could make up with hard work,” All Might put in.</p>
<p>“I don’t have an issue with putting her in the hero class, certainly her written exam scores prove she has strong potential, and her low endurance can be fixed with training. My only concern is with the straight-forwardness in which she used her abilities.” Aizawa sighed.</p>
<p>Nedzu gave an understanding nod after no other teacher put forth their thoughts. “Then, Aizawa, do you have the final count for 1-A?”</p>
<p>Aizawa looks at two applications in front of him, separated from the 19 in his acceptance pile. He took the one closest to him and added it to his stack. “Yes, I do.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>A couple weeks later, Michaela got it in the mail. Upended the envelope on the table as a small disc-like machine clunked down. A few moments of feeling around and she found a button to press and a smiling illusion of All Might radiated out of it. Or was this a higher level messaging spell?</p>
<p>“All Might?” She ventured hesitantly.</p>
<p>The projection didn’t react but started speaking a moment later. <em>“Michaela Greyfen, your score totaled to 16 villain points and 7 rescue points have also been awarded to you for assisting a fellow examinee.”</em> All Might coughed awkwardly into his hand before continuing. <em>“Though you did pass out during the examination, your resourcefulness and potential give us confidence that you have what it takes to train to be a hero in our school, in Class 1-A. We look forward to seeing you a the beginning of the month.” </em>His grin, if possible, widened. <em>”Young Greyfen, welcome to your Hero Academia!”</em></p>
<p>Michaela’s hands shook slightly as the projection lingered for a moment before shutting off and leaving an inert machine in her hands in the darkened room. Her eyes burned. “Thanks, thank you,” she said to the empty apartment.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Our Opening Ceremony</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Michaela tugged on her crisp school uniform and examined herself in the mirror, rubbing insistently at one of her eyes. Intimidating and amber in color, they matched with her perpetual frown but didn't suit the cheerful uniform much at all. She moved her mid-length light-green hair up, then let it fall back in unbrushed waves. Unbrushed because when had a dnd character ever, ever had to stop their adventuring and brush their hair? Never. So even though it could look nappy in the morning, it would seem to work itself out before long.</p><p>Without any ceremony, she reached over, flicked the lights off, and exited her apartment.</p><hr/><p>When she arrived at UA, the doorman Michaela had attempted to bribe a few weeks before took a double-take, and, after checking her credentials over twice, allowed her access to the school with a grudging "Congrats."</p><p>No one could blame her if her frown worked off her face when she saw the grand entryway to the school, all the students milling around in excitement. There were cherry blossoms lining the entrance out of season and dozens and dozens of interesting looking NPCs and presumably, player characters. This meant the real start to her quest.</p><p>She notices a break in the thrill from a blond-haired boy with narrow eyes, who seemed to be having a fit talking to another boy. Michaela slowed down as she walked past.</p><p>"…This clearly isn't right! I'm supposed to be in 1-A! My parents told me they talked to the board! I should have been boosted up by now! I'm <em>not</em> going to be working with second-rate trash in 1-B. I'll <em>die </em>of humiliation! I'm obviously aiming to be a top-tier hero."</p><p>Michaela quickly sped up, moving past the two in tacit surprise. She swallowed. That shitty guy was in Japan's #1 Hero school? Anger bubbled in her gut. She tried to breathe it down. That <em>boy </em>wanted to be a <em>hero? </em>Even if she believed someone could be a real hero, not in just a moment, but as a defining trait, this boy was far from it. The boy talking to him was consoling him, soothing his ego. Michaela looked at the passing students around her, suddenly feeling the divide between her and them.</p><p>How many of them were like that? How many of them didn't care who they would be rescuing? She watched another blond boy shoulder past someone. Her skin prickled. Were they all fakes and pretenders? Out for fame and glory? She blocks out everyone and finds a map so she can go to her classroom when she heard someone else, not far off.</p><p>Her eyes dart to find an incredibly short boy with purple spheres on his head. "Did you see that pink girl's ass? Jeez, I hope I'm behind her in class…"</p><p>Mel released a strangled exhale, fists rolling up into tight balls. This is where she should be finding her adventuring party, she <em>knew </em>that. But these students, they're nothing like the paradigm of peace they're aiming to be. They're fakes. Entitled. She wasn't like them at all. Every combat put her life at risk—-it was even worse, as a lone wizard her survivability was severely crippled and she accepted that. It was a joke to them. They didn't belong here—no, <em>she </em>didn't belong here.</p><p>"Excuse me?" A tap came on her shoulder. A black-haired boy with strange elbows pointed to the map in front of her.</p><p>Michaela pulled herself together enough to step out of the way to allow other people to look at the map and ambled to her new classroom, regret cascading over her already.</p><hr/><p>On opening the door, a glasses-wearing boy was sharply reprimanding a blond kid who had his feet up on the desk, who was screaming back at him.</p><p><em>Not worth it, not worth it, </em>Michaela repeated in her head like a mantra as she found her seat, a few seats over from the chaos and pulled out her silver and blue spellbook. She's working on a complicated bit of a spell she's studying when a pink skinned-and-haired girl pops into her field of vision a couple of feet away from her, causing her to startle slightly.</p><p>"Hey! You're the girl who saved me at the exam! Sorry, I forgot your name?" She smiled apologetically.</p><p>"I actually didn't tell you my name." She fixed her eyes back on the book. She figured it would be the fastest way to get rid of her. She wasn't in the mood. Now, or, presumably, for the next three years. "It's Michaela though," she finished with a bored tone.</p><p>The pink girl scrunches her eyes a little and opens her mouth to respond when the teacher walked in the room and the girl skipped to her desk before introductions could start.</p><p>In the middle of introductions, after the green-haired boy introduces himself as Midoriya Izuku, the blond-haired boy interrupted rather explosively. "WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT THE NAMES OF THESE SHITTY-ASS EXTRAS? I'M GONNA BE THE TOP HERO SO WEAKLINGS LIKE FUCKING DEKU SHOULD WORRY ABOUT KNOWING MY NAME!"</p><p>Something in Michaela snapped nearly palpably as her neck whirled around when she went to face him. "Extras!" She said loudly, gaining the room's attention at her outburst. No, too far. Too angry. I can't start a fight in the middle of class. She takes a breath and speaking with a deceitfully humorous voice, "You call your classmates 'Extras'? You kind of sound like a textbook case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Are you really supposed to be a hero student?"</p><p>The room was quiet for a second before several classmates started chuckling, a red-haired boy guffawing before the teacher, Aizawa-sensei, commanded quiet in the room, with a stern no-nonsense look to Michaela, cutting off Bakugo's angry yells as he redirected them. Michaela just sat back in her seat and crossed her arms, looking only a few levels more composed than the apoplectic blond.</p><p>She'd been working her way through the Musutafu library in the last few weeks and while she hadn't expected to use the DSM-5 as ammunition for insults when she'd read it, it would have to do until she could check the library for something more fitting to get her insults from. Because she would most definitely need more soon if this jerk was in her class.</p><hr/><p>As it turned out, they weren't even going to the opening ceremony. Aizawa told everyone to get in their gym uniforms for a practical exam. The worst of the class was going to be expelled.</p><p>Michaela's throat tightened. Even if she hated UA so far, she reviled the idea of throwing away a month of work like that. And All Might had implied she was at the very least, among the lowest scorers to make it into 1-A.</p><p>Worse, she hadn't been able to nail down if it was a bluff or not. On one hand, it seemed unlikely as she'd already been issued her tuition invoice, and expelling even the worst of the most promising students seemed illogical. Especially because, in this scenario, someone lost no matter how well everyone did on the test, rather than just meeting a specific bottom line, on the <em>other hand</em>, Aizawa looked incredibly serious about the whole thing. Enough to make her palms sweat, and do worse to most of the class. Especially, she noticed as they lined up outside, one of the other green-haired kids, Midoriya, looked like a complete wreck. Had he thought he could coast on his acceptance? Surely if he'd gotten in, he shouldn't look so utterly convinced he was going to fail.</p><p>Tests including footrace, baseball throw, lifting weights, grip strength, an obstacle course, and target hitting were set up before them. These called for more spell slots than she currently employed (namely, two). She would have to get creative and choose two competitions she was going to do well on and very nearly fail the rest. Suddenly she felt like shaking in anxiety along with the green-haired boy.</p><p>They started with the blond explosive kid throwing the ball an incredible distance with his quirk, not like he needed the ego boost. When it was her turn, well, she underperformed. Better than the grape boy, but worse even than Midoriya, who after being forbidden from using his quirk, still pulled an impressive throw in her book.</p><p>By sheer chance, she did a bit better on weights, but the amount she was lifting was pitiful. She couldn't manage to get 40 pounds over her head. Again, the gravity girl, Uraraka passed with flying colors, setting her 80-pound weight somewhere in low orbit.</p><p>The grip strength test went similarly abysmally. She clocked in at 39 pounds of pressure, this time with Uraraka struggling with a similar score. Most of the boys were making it to the triple digits.</p><p>Wiping sweat off her forehead, Michaela began muttering familiar arcane words to prepare for the next event. She had no doubt she was in last place, well, Mineta or Midoriya were definitely stuck in the bottom of the barrel with her, at least. The next test was the footrace, which clearly favored Engine Legs, Iida. And her, somewhat.</p><p>A smirk spread across her face as she finished the incantation for Expeditious Retreat. 60 feet per round was nowhere near what these kids could do for a short distance. Sprinting wasn't an option in 5e rules as even a dash action brought her to a lowly 7 mph in a turn.</p><p>Really, if she didn't want to be the <em>slowest </em>in the class, the spell was necessary. Looking over at Aizawa gave her no idea on just how poorly she was performing but she could hazard that the answer wasn't 'well.' She copied the other students in their runner's crouches though it would have no bearing on her ability. She tensed, waited for the signal, and leaped into action, running at 90 feet per round. She was one of the first to finish a stride, but predictably, by the end of the second round, most the class had picked up speed and outpaced her. Leaving her in the dust, unable to break 10mph because of The Rules.</p><p>She didn't finish last this time, if only because Mineta tripped and Aoyama was complaining of a stomach ache.</p><p>She glanced over at Midoriya, beginning to feel as nervous as he was. The boy caught her look and offered a somewhat relieved smile to her, as if they were sharing a moment. Michaela quickly looked away, sweat dropping. Chances were, she'd looked away in time. Looking out silently into the distance did <em>magic </em>on getting people to leave you alone. But a second later, she felt Midoriya shuffle over to her and nervously clear his throat, she kept her eyes averted, watching the red-haired boy and engine legs set up the next test—an obstacle course.</p><p>"Hi, it's Greyfen, right?"</p><p>The wizard turned to the boy, resigned to making half-hearted conversation with the wanna-be-hero-kid."Uh, yeah, Michaela. You're Izuku, right?"</p><p>To her surprise, the boy's face colored pink. "A-ah, yeah, Midoriya Izuku, t-that's me."</p><p>Flummoxed despite herself, Michaela scrutinized him. "Are you alright?"</p><p>"Uh, oh yeah." He shook his head roughly and refocused. "I'm just impressed by how good the other students are," he said quickly, though his cheeks were still red. Was that a blush? Clearly, something had flustered him but she couldn't parse what it was. Her frown? Maybe he was even more the sensitive type than she assumed? After a moment of concentration, the edges of her mouth quirked slowly upward into a pained smile. Thankfully, Michaela was saved from the worsening social interaction as they were called to line up for the obstacle course.</p><p>This time, thanks to her natural 30ft/round full movement even over rough terrain, and a lucky dexterity check, Michaela was hurtling through the obstacle course like a champ, hopping fences, running through shin-deep mud, and skidding to a stop after only six of her other classmates had crossed the finish line.</p><p>The standing long jump was abysmal—with a standing jump of half her strength, she only made 5 feet. Her fifty-meter dash took a poor 12.9 seconds, and by then, the excitement of her performance in the obstacle course had soured entirely.</p><p>Aizawa had set up the last trial, a series of targets to destroy each about 40 feet apart. This had been aimed toward the ranged fighters, or at very least, not against very fast melee fighters like Iida. Michaela held up her pointer finger, watching a small red glow emit from my fingertip with a nasty grin. Finally, a good challenge for a wizard.</p><p>Electric boy—Kaminari—and Mineta went first, managing to finish in 14 and 37 seconds respectively, the latter having to run up to each target, rip it off its framing and stomp on it until he was given a green light. Amusing.</p><p>Then went the creation girl who made a blaster weapon that destroyed the targets in 18 seconds. Then Midoriya who ran to the targets and kicked them in half, finishing in 21 seconds. And Michaela was called up. As Aizawa was counting down from three, Michaela was already holding her action for his mark. All three targets were in different directions, none more than 50 feet from her.</p><p>"Go!"</p><p><em>"</em><em>Magic Missile!" </em>Three thin lasers shot off, bending, hurtling, piercing the targets exactly where she wanted them to, the bullseye. There was a stretch and <em>snap </em>as she felt her control over her magic disconnect. Out of spells. The sensation of numbness in her chest and void in her stomach was awful. But the clock stopped. Her attack had only taken a reaction. The clock read 0'01.00"</p><p>Even Aizawa looked unnerved by this. The class had their mouths agape at the spectacle. The silence spanned for another second.</p><p>Aizawa cleared his throat. "Nicely done, Greyfen. Next, Bakugo?"</p><p>After the last round of tests, and the reveal that none of the last was being expelled, the girls headed back to the locker room to change back into their school uniforms. The pink girl, Ashido, gave an exaggerated stretch as they walked into the locker room.</p><p>"Maaaan! I really thought he was gonna get rid of someone!"</p><p>Uraraka groaned sympathetically. "But your ability is super cool! Once I saw how strong everyone was, I felt so nervous." She held her stomach.</p><p>This quickly made the conversation devolve into gushing about each other's abilities. Talking about Kaminari, Asui's, Jiro's, then Bakugo's.</p><p>"I heard Bakugo got the top score on the entrance exam. Seventy-seven villain points, gero," Asui recalled, finger to her chin.</p><p>"<em>What</em>?" It took a beat for Michaela to realize she'd said it aloud. Asui looked at Michaela, who was already buttoning up her uniform but was open-mouthed in surprise. "That asshole?" The blond kid had performed really well in the tests today, but…<em>seventy-seven points</em>? She'd barely scraped together 23 points and that was including those seven rescue points she'd been given afterward. She couldn't help but feel her face pale a shade as she gave a small sweat-drop. She'd found potentially the strongest kid in the A-Class of the top hero school and made an enemy of him <em>five minutes</em> into class on her first day. Maybe her strategy of well, no strategy, would need some re-tooling. She resisted smacking her head against something.</p><p>Frog girl pulled her from her thoughts. "Your quirk is really interesting, gero. Are those lasers?"</p><p>"Ah, well, lasers are part of it," Michaela imparted reluctantly.</p><p>"No, no, I saw her use electricity and fire during the exam!" Ashido jumped in, flinging her arm through the sleeve of her uniform and nearly bumping into Asui. Jirou looked over as well and if the floating pair of uniform pants were anything to go by, Hagakure was there too.</p><p>"I can do that too, but I'm not as specialized as some of those elemental kids. And I can't keep it up for long." She frowned, already mourning her spell slots. If this was their teacher's idea of an opening ceremony, she had no idea what to expect for the rest of the day, except that she would be doing it without any spells unless she had enough time to use Arcane Recovery. It would take an hour or limited activity, but it would give her just enough mojo for one more spell. She was brought out of her thoughts when she realized the two girls were still watching her, waiting for her to speak. She felt a little twinge and figured it wouldn't hurt to offer them a little more information this once. They'd see it anyway. "But I have a few little tricks up my sleeve. Ah, not literally though," she scratched her cheek. "Because he's in my collar." Before the girls could try to parse her words, a small reptilian face popped out from the neck of her shirt, climbing out as Michaela tied her tie loose around her neck. The tangerine gecko climbed onto her shoulder, tilting his head as he studied the three visible girls with slow-blinking green eyes.</p><p>Ashido, who had jumped back in surprise now leaned in a bit. "Whoa, you have a pet! I can't believe you snuck him in!"</p><p>"Well, he has a habit of showing up where I am, and he's not…a pet," Michaela leaned back an equal amount that Ashido leaned forward. She could literally feel their attention on her. She even saw Uraraka and Yaoyorozu's eyes on her. Literally every girl in the class was looking at her like she was interesting, or a puzzle or something and she suddenly regretted showing her cards as she had. After all, this certainly wouldn't be the only time they class competed against each other. Even if they were acting friendly, they were scouting the competition. If they caught wind she was faking a quirk…Well, even the most disarming of them, Ochako, had <em>dominated</em> two events. She couldn't afford to underestimate any of them. This was a profession to them, after all. And the competition of marathon proportions.</p><p>Michaela tried to give them an innocent, disarming smile as she slung her bag over her shoulder and backed out of the lion's den. "I'm heading back to class." <em>If they're all going to play that game with me…</em></p><p>Yaoyorozu watched as the door shut heavily behind the green-haired girl. "That…was a very strange look on her face. Do you think that was her smiling?"</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Here we go, she is finally starting to meet the Class 1-A members…for better AND worse.</p><p>Do we have any non-Dnd players? Let me know, I'll add a key for some terms.</p><p>Example, AoE= Area of effect for a spell attack</p><p>AC= Armor class</p><p>DC= Difficulty class (for a spell)</p><p>Let me know what you thought of the chapter!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. First Days and Missteps</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Michaela navigates her first and second day at UA</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please be patient with Michaela becoming a strong and socially competent wizard, change doesn't happen overnight! Thanks for reading!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As it turned out, Aizawa's lecture was too engaging to take a short rest during, as she was too busy scribbling down notes on what the class would entail and what the next three years would be like. But it ended up being actually very informative, so she couldn't even be sour at giving up her short rest.</p>
<p>Lunch came shortly after. The rest of the class filtered into the cafeteria, which had a massive amount of students. Michaela couldn't recall ever seeing so many children in one place. The academy only had a hundred students in total, across all ages. UA was huge, of course it was, coming from a massive city with futuristic health care as well as healing magic.</p>
<p>She accepted a very-palatable looking tray of food from Lunch Rush, and scanned the cafeteria for an empty table. There wasn't one, accept for some tables with a few upperclassman. As little as she cared for the social order or making friends here, she surmised walking up to one of those tables like she owned it would win her enemies. Luckily there was one mostly empty table. The Tokoyami and Koda were sitting there, a distance away from each other. She set her tray down a little ways away from Tokoyami and the bird boy looked up at her neutrally for a moment. She offered twitch of her lips in greeting with no real emotion behind it as she sat. Then she shifted into Arcane Recovery, focusing on refilling her expended magical energy, filling the void the use of magic had left her with. It could be a frustrating process, but eventually, she left the well of magical energy to creep back ever-so-slightly, returning a pleasant feeling to her fingertips, as if she were welcoming back an old friend.</p>
<p>Being out of spells was an uncomfortable feeling for any wizard, like an amateur runner experiencing blood mouth, but it was something novice wizards had to deal with far too often. But she had one 1st level spell again, she wasn't defenseless. She looked at the clock, oh, thirty-nine minutes had passed, and her food was gone. She looked at Tokoyami but he didn't seem daunted at all, he was just focused on a book. What a good lunch companion.</p>
<p>Once the bell rang for the end of the first day, she was one of the first out of the room. She felt overwhelmed by the whole experience, and she was infinitely grateful she could go home now, study the course syllabi and a few new spells, and crash early.</p>
<p>Michaela dreamed.<em> It was dark all around her, but it wasn't like her nightmares of Idrul's Night. Before her, a shape obscured by a heavy black cloak and shadow appeared in front of her, he was ten times larger than her but she could only see him from his shoulders up. She could make out the lower half of his face. Blond stubble on a lightly smirking face. It was a face she recognized. The countenance of the Dean of Snapdrake Academy. The one who had spellcast on her, out of nowhere, banished her here. She opened her mouth to yell, to barter, to beg, she wasn't sure. The words froze in her throat with a spasm. </em></p>
<p>
  <em>"</em>
  <em>Novice Greyfen. You have fought and learned. You've gotten stronger, as you will continue to do as long as you play your part at UA. Once your quest is complete I'll Plane Shift you back to our world. In the meantime…" He closed his hand and when it opened, there was a six-sided dice in his palm, not quite opaque as wisps of energy shifted like smoke beneath its sides. He let it fall from his hand. Then smiled at her. "Lucky girl, you rolled a six. Your path could have been much harder."</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>The mouth twitched slightly. "I'm sure you're not aware that something has changed yet, as you were unconscious, but I took the liberty of homebrewing a rule change. You'll find it's a little harder to die, and a little harder to heal. It's just terribly difficult when there's no one with, hem, real cleric abilities. But I'm sure this is nothing you can't handle."</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>That's when Michaela found a semblance of control over her voice. "Th—h—" Her throat arrested again and she hunched over gasping.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>"</em>
  <em>You're either stronger or more foolish than I thought, to be able to fight my control in my pocket dimension so early. Perhaps you were the right choice after all, Novice."</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Inky black took over her vision again.</em>
</p>
<hr/>
<p>The next morning when a pittering of gecko feet jumped on and off the mattress and onto the chair, Michaela woke feeling <em>more. </em>A lot more.</p>
<p>She was at 14 HP now, with another spell slot to boot. She was on the right path, even if the entity had been less than clear about her real quest's parameters. She knew it was tightly wound within UA and the vision she had had on waking up here. For now, she just had to keep moving forward, avoid distraction, and find a way to prepare for something she would be all but blindsided by. Michaela took one of her hands in the other, gripping firmly to impede its slight shake. She almost felt the urge to glassblow, to create her art to relieve some of the stress, maybe a satirical piece of her former-Dean. The inclination quickly faded.</p>
<p>So she was over her head, she could handle it. An adventurer didn't cower away from a (CR appropriate) challenge. They hunkered down, investigated for clues, insight checked anybody with an inch of political power, and waited for the inevitable next plot thread to peek out.</p>
<p>With the time she had before class, she had the chance to complete research and transcriptions on <em>Fog Cloud </em>and <em>Absorb Elements</em>. She'd need new tomes on magic eventually, but she was alright for the near future. And this meant at least keeping up with the bottom half of class suddenly looked a lot less daunting.</p>
<p>She took the time to switch out Expeditious Retreat for Mage Armor, deducing that if they had raced yesterday, it was unlikely it would be more useful than general defense. After finishing, she got on her train and headed to the school in silence.</p>
<p>After roll call and a quick dive into their new textbooks, which clearly Iida, Yaoyorozu, Todoroki, and herself had already familiarized themselves with, Aizawa called for everyone to change into their gym uniforms again and meet in one of the smaller gyms for sparring.</p>
<p>Michaela dressed quickly and pulled a piece of cured leather out of her pouch. Facing her locker, she held the leather to her forehead and briefly whispered the incantation for Mage Armor. She felt her armor class shoot up from a meager 12 to a decent 15. She was the only one to bring her backpack into the gym with her but there was no chance in the seven hells she would be parted from her spellbook.</p>
<p>The exercise was light sparring, just taps, with a focus on dodging. The first person to be tapped ten times lost the round. Three rounds per partner, then they would switch, no quirks allowed. Well, she had used Mage Armor, but it wasn't a quirk, and more importantly, as a solo level 2 wizard in melee, it would be a disaster without it. A painful, embarrassing-for-all, remembered-past-graduation, level disaster.</p>
<p>She was first paired with tape-kid, Sero. He flashed her a friendly grin before they began.</p>
<p>Michaela raised in her fists in response. <em>Roll for initiative, </em>she thought dryly.</p>
<p>She moved first, surprising herself with perfect two-knuckle tap to his shoulder. In moments they were both dipping out of the way of hits, where Michaela got two more in. A small smirk worked onto her face, maybe she wasn't as screwed at this school as she—</p>
<p>Tap to her stomach. Her mouth opened make a sound of irritation as Sero stepped back with his own smirk. From there on, Michaela couldn't hit the tape boy at all. He won the round, then swept the floor with her, routinely doubling the amount of points Michaela had.</p>
<p>Michaela was profoundly, irrevocably built to fail in physical combat. What's more, even if she learned new combat techniques, or practiced every day like they were, she wasn't going to get any better. Not unless she used her next ASI to boost strength or dexterity. But that's something no self-respecting wizard would ever do.</p>
<p>Sero tossed her a towel right before rotation and she had acknowledged she was grateful they weren't causing damage, or she'd already be low. After all, any attack hitting intending to do damage did a minimum of one damage. What would her new classmates think if they went another round and she was suddenly on the ground making death-saves? Her hands tightened on the towel tight enough it made a rubbing sound against the skin of her palms.</p>
<p>
  <em>Enough feeling bad for myself. I signed up for this. Sort of. </em>
</p>
<p>She could only hope that she could coast the bottom of the class in sparring and do well enough in practicals and tests to pass. But what other option did she have? The plot clearly dictated this was the place to be. Furthermore, the teachers here clearly had so much to teach. And being able to help, not as a hero, but as someone who wanted to do more good than bad, make a name for herself, and make a positive difference in as many people as she could. And if this particular career path could be as monetarily rewarding as an adventurer in her world, well, so be it.</p>
<p>Michaela then found herself paired up with the shortest boy in the class—one that she'd already formed a strong opinion about, much like the rest of the girls in the class.</p>
<p>She fared better than with Sero, but Michaela still got hit a lot, but this time she was paying Mineta back about more often than not. They were seconds away from the end of the round when Mineta got a lucky hit with just a little to much force, delivered to her stomach. She stepped back with a wheeze from the impact.</p>
<p>Mineta's hands rose. "Agh! Sorry—I hope I didn't damage your hot bod!" The grape boy wailed as Aizawa called for the pairs to be switched.</p>
<p>If Michaela were ready to have accepted the boy's apology before, she certainly wasn't now, as she fixed the boy, who was now openly checking her out, a withering glare. But it wasn't like there was anything she could do to—as far as she could tell, it had been an accident. She just walked over to her last sparring partner of the day—Todoroki Shouto. All she knew about him was that he was intense, he wasn't at the school to have a good time as others seemed to, and that, at least, Michaela could respect.</p>
<p>Immediately, the divide in strength between the two hero students was painfully apparent. They had finished two rounds in the time of one, Todoroki landing hits one after another-after another while Michaela's blows routinely failed to hit the boy. Every point caused the frustration between the wizard and the heterochromatic boy to grow. She'd just leveled up, dammit. She was <em>sick</em> of losing. But Todoroki was clearly the most advanced student in the class and there wasn't anything she could do about it.</p>
<p>Todoroki didn't even blink as Michaela's full-force punch on glanced his shoulder. He lashed out, landing a stinging hit to Michaela's side she clumsily failed to avoid. "You don't belong here. You're too weak." Were the first words he said to her.</p>
<p>She managed to block the next hit with a flailing swipe, then spoke up. "You're Endeavor's kid, aren't you?" It wasn't a hard assumption for her to make—she'd seen clips of the #2 hero plenty of times over her two months in Japan. Endeavor clearly valued his private life, but it wasn't as if his real name had been stricken from the record or anything. Enji Todoroki, Shouto Todoroki, at a hero school, she'd bet it all on less sure bets before.</p>
<p>The boy tensed up so bad he pulled back his next hit, recoiling from her words. His face darkened, lips flattening, withdrawing more than he already had been. "Sorry but I'm not actually interested in talking, I was just pointing out the obvious." Todoroki's next hit was too strong to be a tap, but then again, this boy didn't seem the type to know how to hold back.</p>
<p>"To be fair, I wasn't looking for a conversation. It was just a question." Michaela grit her teeth, in response to his words rather than the blow. She knew she shouldn't let her mounting frustration control her but the temptation was strong.</p>
<p>"Your form is pathetic," he finally growled out, Todoroki accruing points so quickly they'd finished three rounds and gone into the fourth. "You haven't properly blocked a single hit. Unless your goal is to be punched."</p>
<p>Michaela pursued, now aching to rile him up. "I don't see you dodging all mine either, and I'll bet you're professionally trained. What's the matter, Son of Number Two?" That clearly ate at him-more than she'd even intended, but her point was real. Ordinarily, she guessed he would be blocking all a total amateur's blows, but here, he had an AC and Michaela was more or less relying on luck—and it went both ways. She was landing a few but substantial hits on Todoroki due to the sheer amount of chances she'd had.</p>
<p>Todoroki's teeth ground, his next pulled punch hit her chin just hard enough for her jaw to click shut. It'd bruise later, but neither of them noticed, Michaela's eyes widening slightly through her own anger to assess the rage in the ice-user's.</p>
<p>"You're not taking this seriously enough. You're undisciplined, you wouldn't last ten seconds against a villain. Just save yourself the time and quit now," Todoroki said, his voice akin as frigid as his quirk.</p>
<p>She'd thought the same thing of the other kids just yesterday. Just hearing that made her want to conjure a prop punching glove with her newfound specialization and nail him in the face. Not taking it seriously because she was shitty at hand-to-hand? She fumed at the thought. It was high stakes after high stakes for her. Seemed like the kid may have understood something about that.</p>
<p>Her lip curled. "Says the one who couldn't be bothered to come to the entrance ex—" She cut herself off as she felt a hand land heavily on her shoulder. Immediately, she lowered her hands as the fight left her body. She looked over to see Aizawa-sensei eyeing her critically, irritation hardening his features. He removed his hand after a moment, his intensity not fading.</p>
<p>"Five minutes into sparring and you two are at each other's throats." He started, looking between the two. He'd pegged Greyfen as a hot-head within minutes of meeting the class, however, Todoroki, he hadn't expected to rile up so easily. Though both the students were looking cowed now. Her assessed them critically. It was clear the sparring had escalated quickly and gone too far. Todoroki had a few visible red marks on his arms and was quietly trying to reign in his temper. Greyfen, however, was breathing hard, still eyeing Todoroki distrustfully. She'd instantly been subdued when Aizawa had put his hand on her shoulder but now that he'd pulled it away, she was still clearly mentally stuck in her argument. She was sporting the beginnings of substantial bruises on her jaw and arms and a nose bleed, still dripping slightly and smeared across her cheek. "You both treated this as a battle and not training. I shouldn't have to tell you how stupid you both were."</p>
<p>Aizawa's eyes narrowed slightly and Todoroki had the decency to pull himself from his anger to realize he'd gone too far. He'd made the mistake on focusing too much on Bakugo's fights and had apparently misunderstood Todoroki's limits and his frustration. He'd failed them. Aizawa forced himself to move past his anger towards himself as well as the two students, as it wouldn't help any of them now.</p>
<p>Under other situations, he'd have taken the time to critically assess if Todoroki belonged in the hero class for the damage he'd done to his partner, but Greyfen was a special case. He'd seen the last exchange and Todoroki had been angry and a bit reckless but Aizawa had no doubt he had still only used a portion of his strength. Not enough to put a student in this condition, which meant that again was Greyfen's poor constitution at play.</p>
<p>"Consider yourselves to have a 0 in participation today," he finally growled. "Todoroki, sit out for the rest of class. Greyfen, get yourself to the nurse, now."</p>
<p>He pinched the bridge of his nose, warding away a headache. He had a lot to think about and he needed someone less impetuous to talk him out of doing anything too rash. He'd need to find Mic again at lunch.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Michaela went to lunch, fully healed but with a point of exhaustion and veered off to avoid the crowd of her classmates again. Tokoyami and Koda had been pulled over to the table with Kirishima and…Bakugo? How dare they steal her silent lunch partner? The outrage was unreal. Was sneaking off to the library to take a short rest a possibility? She calculated the risk in her head. The lunch monitors, plus the cameras in the school and the librarian being a retired minor hero…optimistically, her chances were just north of 0%. The offense must have shown on her face.</p>
<p>"Greyfen-san?" Michaela looked around to see Iida and Midoriya standing with their trays. Midoriya reached up to scratch his cheek shyly. "We were wondering if you wanted to sit with us for lunch?" It seemed like they either were ignoring the training mishap, or it had been handled quietly enough for most of the class not to notice just how sour it had gone.</p>
<p>"I also feel it is my duty to congratulate you, Greyfen-san, for your shooting during yesterday's test. You were quite fast. I'll be sure not to underestimate you in the future," Iida added, holding the tray in one hand so his other hand could robotically and aggressively gesticulate.</p>
<p>Michaela sweat slightly. <em>He definitely just said he wasn't expecting much from me earlier. </em>Still she decided polite declination was best. She was itching for that spell slot back and hadn't yet been able to get a short rest in class. She had to do her best to be prepared at all times, after her stupid lapse in judgement today, she was on thin ice and she knew it.</p>
<p>"Sorry, I have a lot to study right now, I can't have any distractions," she told them.</p>
<p>Iida went rigid, his hand waving becoming more pronounced. "Of course! In fact, we should all strive to be studying that hard ourselves. I am ashamed!"</p>
<p>"Iida, it's okay to take a break. It's important too, and Greyfen-san, too." Midoriya quickly assured.</p>
<p>"Ah, yeah. Sorry, see you, Tenya, Izuku," she high-tailed it out of that social situation and an empty table quick enough she didn't quite comprehend the spluttering behind her.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Aizawa slouched in his chair, Present Mic doodling a picture on a spare sheet of paper. The topic of the day had been their students, as usual. Today, however, was more pressing.</p>
<p>"I thought my biggest problem would be the Midoriya after he defeated the 0 pointer, but it looks like I have two self-harming students this year."</p>
<p>"Oh? Who is that?"</p>
<p>"Remember the girl who passed out in the exam but still made the cut? Michaela Greyfen. She's not very…hardy. Part of that can be solved with conditioning, but it's concerning. Her quirk, by all means, seems incredible but she's very handicapped by how often she can use it. I don't know enough about it yet but she seems to be restraining herself and using it as a last resort. Limited Arcana, for whatever that may mean. She incited another student enough that their sparring got rough. Probably a broken nose. I saw how hard her partner was hitting, she bled way too easily. She's uncoordinated and one of the weakest physically in the class." Aizawa finished, running a hand through his tangled hair. "I need to watch her more carefully. I wonder if general, or your class, would be a better fit for her." She hadn't done badly against her first two opponents as Aizawa had observed, but things had soured far too quickly for his liking. He still wondered how the two had gotten so worked up and which of them had done it.</p>
<p>Present Mic spread his hands. "I would gladly take her, Shouta! But give her a chance, it's day two. She may just pull a WIN in the exercise tomorrow when she can use her quirk! You have more experience with unconventional quirks than anybody. See if she can compensate for her weaknesses before the Sports Festival. If not, we'll talk about placement."</p>
<p>Aizawa shook his head. "I won't leave an unfit student in danger for three more weeks. The longer we wait, the harder the change will be for them. I'll give her until the end of the week to prove she can handle 1-A's course. If she can't, I don't care what All Might says, she <em>and </em>Midoriya may be better suited for 1-B or General Studies. A hero that can only take a couple of hits ends up risking more heroes. I won't accept glass cannons in my class."</p>
<p>Present Mic sighed, setting his pencil down. Changing classes wasn't an orthodox method. Aizawa had expelled dozens of students in the past. It was saying that he saw a major fault in their performance and was still seeking alternate methods to expelling them. The blond teacher couldn't help a small grin from returning to his expressive face. "It's true the Sato boy may be good for the 1-A class but I know how good of an instructor you are, Shouta! I'm sure you can help them both find a solution to both student's problems if you use that big head and those dry eyes of yours to apply yourself."</p>
<p>A tic mark appeared on Aizawa's head. "What do my dry eyes have to do with it?"</p>
<hr/>
<p>The third day came with more of a change for the level 2 wizard. Second hour of class, Aizawa invited a surprise visitor in. The atmosphere in the room immediately changed to palpable excitement as the muscled form of the #1 Hero, All Might.</p>
<p>He dashed into the room to take a pose in the middle of the room. "Never fear…for I am here!"</p>
<p>The room elapsed in cheers and gasps of amazement. Michaela, gripping the edge of her desk tightly, realized that this man was probably the reason some of the students had wanted to be heroes…maybe before they were in it for the fame and fortune. But there was so much reverence and love for this man, it couldn't help but sink her heart.</p>
<p>After all, she had the vision from arriving in Japan to think about. An emaciated version of this man felled in an awful battle. She had no idea when or where it would take place, just that this was where she was meant to be.</p>
<p>She was the only one who knew this was coming, therefore, the responsibility fell on squarely on her shoulders.</p>
<p>It was simple—the quest forced upon her was set down the line of this hero school, the man standing in front of her was the #1 Hero, who may be killed in the near future; if she were going to train to be a hero, she wouldn't half-ass it like some of the other students—she'd need to get a lot stronger. She'd find a way to define "hero" that she could believe in.</p>
<p>As strange as it was to imagine, she would need to play bodyguard to the Number One Hero.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thanks for reading please take the time to let me know what you thought!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Tenser's Floating Disk</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">All Might presented suitcases with 1-A’s new costumes to the class’s shock. They’d only submitted their designs the previous afternoon. Did UA have a sweatshop somewhere?</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> She’d have to investigate later, perhaps there was a secret sub-basement with hapless missing students and a tyrannical teacher subjecting them to creating hero costumes for the baby-faced freshman, but it was, perhaps, unlikely.She still subtly pulled her campaign notebook out of her pocket and marked her suspicion for later digging on a slow day.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The wizard grabbed her briefcase labeled ‘10,’ weighed it in her arms with disbelief—it certainly had enough heft to be everything she’d asked for. This school wasn’t wasting a second. Forgoing the possible basement clothing-slave point, she also figured it could be the support class she now remembered was in the school. If it was to be assumed it was all strictly legal, the costume developers were likely second years, third years working more important projects, and first years not knowing enough to do this. Or did they? It was quickly becoming clear not to underestimate anyone in this school.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> She snuck a peek inside, grinned like a mad fool and snapped it shut to head to the locker rooms. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Putting on their costumes for the first time was a huge step, not only symbolizing their path to becoming heroes but also a buff to AC to most students, or whatever modifier or world order that passed for AC here. Michaela wasn’t proficient in any armor so her costume was just a flavor choice personally. But as she slid her white and silver embellished spellbook into the treated leather holster, she couldn’t stop a wide grin from spreading across her face. She even did a subtle twirl in the mirror, inspecting the blue-gray tunic cut short to mid-thigh over a pair of black spandex shorts for decency’s sake. It came with a hood with a white geometric pattern around the edge, which she pulled up, and a pair of black boots with red soles. The mystery organization who’d carried out the design had taken her detailedbut wholly utilitarian notes and run with it, adding a bit more style but still keeping the modified wizarding robes look she’d been going for. It was hard not to be thrilled with the outfit. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> Uraraka and Asui were waiting in their costumes at the door, a pink space themed costume and a green jumpsuit respectively—and they all headed toward the training field together in one unit for the first time. Michaela pulled her spellbook back out and thumbed through again anxiously. She had a lot of weaknesses to cover. Namely only having three first level spells. She hadn’t exactly explained the details of her abilities to any teachers either, so she wasn’t sure if they were more than peripherally aware that the majority of my abilities were severely limited. She didn’t regain stamina like the others did. Asui didn’t seem too surprised to see Michaela was running through pages in her book but Uraraka laughed.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> “Deku does the same thing, you know. Are you going over notes? I can’t even start thinking of strategy when Aizawa hasn’t said what we’re doing yet.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> “Just trying to be prepared,” she said, flipping to <em>Feather Fall</em>. Prepared spells that is.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They approached the group and Michaela snapped the silver book shut and re-holstered it. All Might explained that they were going to draw names for a hero versus villain training exercise.</span>
</p>
<hr/>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Michaela was paired up with Kirishima, who she recognized as the red-head. He looked around enthusiastically, seemed to recognize the wizard, and walked over to join her. “Hey, Greyfen. Ready to be villains in the first week of hero school?” He grinned.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She gave him a small smile, side-eyeing the intimidating evocation boy, Bakugo Katsuki, wasn’t it? She was relieved she was pretty good with names or this would be impossible. “Call me Michaela. And depends who we’re up against,” I told Kirishima.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Kirishima laughed. Their opponents were announced—Ojiro and Jiro, funnily enough. Michaela frowned thoughtfully. Kirishima would be a good match up for Ojiro, because Kirishima had a defensive quirk and Ojiro’s whole look clearly gave off a Fighter vibe. But Jiro had a sound quirk and her partner wouldn’t have a proper defense for that. And Michaela’s viability, well, it depended on which saving throw it used. As a human variant (not that any of these standard humans would know) she had a +1 to two stats, an extra skill (Insight), and a feat—Resilient. So she could thank her constitution proficiency on that, at the very least.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Michaela came back to attention when she realized Kirishima was trying to hype himself up for playing a villain. “Crime, money, alleyways, world domination, crime, money…” He was chanting under his breath.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Michaela was grimly amused at this. “Couldn’t someone be a villain to put food on the table because they couldn’t get into a hero school? Or their parents are villains and they were kind of just born into it?” She asked mildly.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Kirishima frowned at this. “Well, no. Not the ones I’ve seen, they’re selfish and cruel.”<br/>Michaela backed off of the conversation with a non-committal hum. She didn’t sympathize with villains, she wanted to stop them, but she had never understood where the line between the average person, a normal civilian who stood by while someone stole a horse, or the person who stole the horse was. The horse thief could have saved lives, and the normal civilian could be cheating on his wife. A world where normal people became ransackers who ruined her life while the Evil Dragon only terrorized it.Humanoids were so complicated, it would be impossible to assign a label like ‘good’ or ‘bad’, very few people could fall under one of these categories.  </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Michaela and Kirishima’s team was assigned to go second. They did the best they could to plan the protecting the rocket and it was helpful to see a team go before them. Michaela pulled out her piece of curled leather from her woven components pouch and muttered a short incantation over it. A few seconds later, she felt the sturdiness of Mage Armor come over me with a ripple of purple light over her robes.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Whoa, what was that?” Kirishima asked as we walked into the building.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It was a spell—one of my stronger ones. It’s kind of like your Stone Skin, it makes it harder to hit me.”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh. Stone Skin, that’s a cool name, I might need to use it,” Kirishima grinned.  They got in position, Michaela guarding the weapon and Kirishima on offense. She waited for the timer to flash and slowly start counting down. Time was on their side. All they had to do was keep the heroes back in order to win. She kept an eye out, sweeping around the room for anybody trying to be sneaky. The majority of the classes’ abilities weren’t clear to her. She could only only guess based on their appearance and what she’d seen in the exam and on the first day. </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> Still, she had a pretty good idea that even a spider would have trouble sneaking by her with her high perception check. That and she’d sent Zen to hide in the corner of the wall outside so she’d have an early warning system if they had someone coming. So far, only the girls knew about her familiar, and she cursed her showing her hand on her first day but at least they didn’t know everything Zen could do.Minutes ticked by. 13:03 minutes left. They’d agreed to check in every two minutes. If they were hiding, they’d just do a <em>tap-tap</em> on the microphone, but Michaela had told him she had another plan for that without risk of being overheard.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The novice pulled a wire out of my pouch and wrapped in over a finger. She aimed the magic down and over to where the entrance was and felt a buzz of connection.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">
    <em>&lt;Kirishima, what’s it look like down there? You can respond just once with a 25-word message so don’t use too many adjectives.&gt;</em>
  </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">
    <em>&lt;Whoa, this is awesome, you said you can hear me? But they can’t? I have eyes on Ojiro but I dunno where the music chick—&gt;</em>
  </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Well, she got the idea anyway. They had just over 12 minutes left when her eyes darted to movement from the window on the other side of the room. Mel had been expecting it, because that’s exactly what any non-tank would do. She had re-held a firebolt for either of them entering the room and the spell blasted from her fingertips as fast as her brain could think, flashing toward the punk rock girl and flying well above her head. Jiro must not have expected the immediate attack, because Michaela was moving before she was, reaching up and using the communication device to reach Kirishima with her free action. “Found Jiro. Hope everything’s alright on your end, because you need to keep Ojiro away.” Her conversational tone cracked with strain at the end.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Kirishima’s voice was almost immediate on the com. “Shoot! Do you need help, I can—“ </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"> “Just keep Ojiro away.” Michaela asserted. She moved between Jiro and the weapon despite every wizard instinct telling her not to. Very few of her spells would cut it here except Firebolt or, well, she had a quarterstaff. It might actually be better, but close-combat, even with another non-melee character was terrifying. Stop what you’re doing, abandon your quest and return with an 8 INT fighter-scary. Still, she pulled the staff out from where it was slung across her shoulder and ran at Jiro. It hit her square in the shoulder, harder than she had been trying to, even. The punk girl went to one knee with a cry. But then her earphone jack extended to the ground. Instantly, the room was filled with an ear-splitting wail of screaming vocals and a cacophony of unintelligible instruments, each competing to be the most headache-inducing.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1"><span class="s1"> Michaela staggered back, holding her head in pain at the inescapable noise but didn’t fall over.</span> <span class="s1">“Stop it!” She growled, but she couldn’t hear her own voice in the chaos. She reached out, she’d dropped the bo staff, and in panic, released another firebolt that glanced Jiro’s side, burning her clothes. The music continued, causing her ears to pop with the strain and the floor to reverberate. She briefly wondered if it was the music or her hearing that had faded but Jiro seemed to be pulling away from the attack and she heard Kirishima over the comm.</span></p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Dude… where you…? Are you…?” Beyond the ringing of her ears, Kirishima’s voice was as quiet as a whisper and she had to ignore the disturbing sensation of not being able to hear her own own heavy breathing. Still, she was up.She sent a quick thanks to her human variant mother for her Resilience.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jiro and Michaela’s eyes were locked. She thumbed the wire in her pouch and sent a Message back to Kirishima.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1"><em>&lt;Jiro tried to get the drop on me. What’s Ojiro doing?&gt; </em>Michaela sent telepathically. She couldn’t trust sound while see was facing off with Jiro, not until she knew the scope of her abilities. Still, it was strange that Jiro and Ojiro hadn’t coordinated an attack against her unless they thought that only one of them would be enough to bring her down.  Jiro was hurt but with some luck, Michaela was still squarely at 11 / 14 HP.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">
    <em>&lt;He got by me, I’m chasing him. I think that was a signal or something. He’s heading over to you guys in less than a—&gt;</em>
  </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">
    <em>A minute? It had to be a minute right? Kirishima was such a motor-mouth he couldn’t count his words!</em>
  </span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jiro pulled herself to her feet again, having regained her breath. Damnit, and she had forgotten forgot that they don’t have hit points, they worked entirely different than her. There’s even an element of mind over matter, or some sort of saving throw, for staying up.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Zen came scuttling from under the door with a hissing squeak she heard more through their bond than aloud. <em>Ojiro was on his way, huh? And with just over ten minutes left. 100 rounds of combat.</em> Michaela felt dizzy. There was no way they could hold out that long—just as she was thinking that, Jiro struck out with a kick to Michaela’s leg.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“No hard feelings!” She said, voice muted. Her foot connected but was held back by the enchantment around the wizard’s body, even against her bare legs.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It goes both ways!”  She returned, reaching out to grab Jiro’s leg but she slipped out of reach just as Michaela’s hand fizzled with electricity. Jiro managed to slap her hand away with an uncoordinated, but bruising hit, leaving her off-balance.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Before Michaela could pursue the opening, Ojiro burst into the room. She hadn’t heard him coming at all, for him to have appeared so quickly was disorienting. Ojiro’s eyes met Jiro’s then flickered to the weapon. If he so much as touched it, it was over. Michaela interposed herself yet again.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Kirishima!” She hissed into the comm as she blasted the other “hero” with a firebolt.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Whatever Kirishima said was blanketed by a punch to the solar plexus that doubled Michaela over in pain. She knew she was lucky to still be up, even then, she had a suspicion that karate-boy hadn’t gone all-out . But Michaela wanted to win. She wanted to show everyone her strength, and maybe get some exp, and she wanted to win. All Ojiro had to do to win would be to risk the AoO from a wizard, which would be negligible and touch the weapon. But Ojiro didn’t know, or wasn’t beholden to, her mechanics. His turn seemed to be over because Kirishima bust through the door and bowled into Ojiro from the back. Michaela stumbled out of the way and looked toward the weapon. They lost if the Heroes touched it or it was destroyed. The Heroes lost if the Villains incapacitated them or if time ran out. She ran over to the massive window, half her movement, and looked down. This was the third floor. But it was also a training ground and looking out the window, she could tell that UA was gently encouraging students to try this approach, and probably other less obvious routes because there was piled up rubble and broken walls down the side. It must have been how Jiro got in. It didn’t look like anything was a ten foot drop if she took the right path down. She looked back at Kirishima, who was holding Ojiro back. Jiro was trying to gather herself and stand up.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Michaela’s hand found what it needed in her pouch as she focused on the weapon. <em>Please be under 500 pounds… </em>She incanted and dropped a drop of mercury on the ground in front of her. It shot forward under the weapon and the weapon began to lift up, the drop of mercury expanding until it became a barely visible 3 foot disk levitating above the ground.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Without another thought, Michaela dove out the window. The disk followed. She only made it a short distance but she could see the weapon following along behind her, now floating in the broken window. There were more sounds of fighting inside and Michaela continued to move, slipping slightly as she crossed the uneven terrain and hopped and climbed down in measure with a dash action.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She commed Kirishima. “Are you holding them back?”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">There was slight static on the other end. “Yeah, yeah—sick move, don’t stop!”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">She looked back and saw Jiro stumbling to the window holding her shoulder. Her ear plugged into the wall. Michaela reacted with fear, she doubted she could last another hit. She shot another firebolt at Jiro and didn’t wait to see if it hit. She couldn’t hear anything follow, for whatever that meant.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Michaela kept moving, once saving her action for a Message to check in on Kirishima. Four minutes left. She had already made it to the border of the exercise so she stopped, watched carefully, and readied another firebolt for Jiro or Ojiro if they appeared before the time was up.</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Kirishima buzzed in to announce raggedly over the comm—“Thirty seconds!”</span>
</p>
<p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Then, some anticipatory breaths later little while later, a scoreboard on the outside of the training ground dinged with the announcement—<em>VILLAINS WIN!</em></span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Victory</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>VILLAINS WIN!</em>
</p><p>Michaela dropped the spell with a sigh, as the rocket dropped to the ground behind her with a hollow thump. Her fingers flew to cradle her tender ribs, feeling sick and on edge for all the damage. After a moment or two of slow breaths, she straightened back up and head back to the viewing room. Kirishima met her on entering the room.</p><p>"Nice one, Greyfen!" He cheered, offering a fist bump. Michaela studied his fist for a for a moment before mirroring the motion, Kirishima cheerily knocking their knuckles together.</p><p>"Good job with Mashirao back there," she replied.</p><p>"Oh, Ojiro? Yeah he sure was tough! What did you think about—"</p><p>Kirishima held the door open for Michaela, and as they walked in, exuberant cheers and commentary rang out from their classmates.</p><p>"What did you <em>do? </em>First you have Kirishima's quirk, then fire power, now you have Uraraka's—"<br/>
"Who taught you to use that staff?"</p><p>"Kirishima, how did you take that punch? That was insane!"</p><p>It continued on, along with placating Ojiro, who limped into the room moments after them. With a pang of guilt, Michaela gathered that Jiro had been sent to the nurse immediately from the camera footage.</p><p>"Congratulations, young students, on your victory!" All Might beamed after the class quieted down. "Class, can anyone share some observations on the fight?"</p><p>The green-haired boy's hand shot up, surprising Yaoyorozu, who was moving to do the same.</p><p>All Might cleared his throat, his voice dipping down slightly. "Ah, yes, young Midoriya?</p><p>"Kirishima made a great call by staying out of the way and buying time against Ojiro, knowing they had the time limit on their side. The match up was also in his favor as Ojiro had strong physical attacks and Kirishima's quirk gives him a strong defense. Jiro did her best to compensate with her ability but when she couldn't find Kirishima after he blended in with the rubble, she had no choice but to go after Greyfen, who, at least to me, still feels like bit of an unknown in terms of strengths and weaknesses. I think the villain team was aiming for that. Jiro's sound attack was great because it worked as a signal and an attack but with the variety of Greyfen's quirk, she couldn't get the upper-hand—nobody could predict what she was going to do and that made Jiro have to stay on the defensive."</p><p>The spellcaster looked at Kirishima and they shared a grin with relief. They'd planned all that before the match and it had paid off. She'd needed to sure to keep the time limit as an advantage and stay back because her Rules made her very bad at longer fights. She couldn't help Midoriya had managed to pick all that up. If the hero thing didn't work out for him, he could have a promising career in quirk commentating. It looked like she wasn't the only student in the class who needed to a strong emphasis on strategizing. Though so far in his own fights, eh, he wasn't really showing it.</p><p>"Very good, my boy! And young Yaoyorozu?"</p><p>"It was a considerable boon that the winning team was able to work together and coordinate wordlessly on several instances. Either everything went to plan or they knew where each other would be without using the communication device. If we weren't new students, I would say they'd worked together before."</p><p>Michaela smiled dizzily. The joys of Message.</p><p>"The one thing I would add onto this is that moving the weapon away from the heroes was well-exploited in this practice but it wouldn't be a sustainable plan in real combat. Regardless, you did well." All Might's constant grin faded slightly as he inspected the three students. "Please go to the nurse, young Greyfen, Recovery Girl will be expecting you. And young Kirishima and Ojiro, if you have any injuries you need tended to."</p><p>Mel nodded again in thanks, not trusting her voice in front of the #1 Hero. She beat a hasty retreat without seeing if her partner was coming along. Evidently, he felt fine because he stayed to watch the next match—Midoriya and Uraraka vs. Bakugo and Iida. Michaela couldn't fault him for wanting to see that particular match.</p><p>Michaela made her way down to the nurse's office, which seemed further than she'd imagined. So maybe 3 / 14 wasn't a good place to be, health-wise. Sure, she'd been functional even at the end of the fight and able to move around more or less unimpeded despite the damage, but now that combat was over, it was like it was starting to catch up with her and the idea of sitting down sounded heavenly. She was running out of clean spots on her hand to wipe off the blood from her mouth and it was suddenly more important that her ribs were making funny-not-funny noises when she breathed. Not to mention, <em>ouch. </em>She'd prefer a long rest but it didn't seem like an option at the moment. She'd been +2 Exhausted after being healed back during the entrance exam and +1 the day before. She didn't know how it would effect her this time, but she wasn't excited to find out. She'd need to work something out with Recovery Girl because the healing came at a hell of a cost, especially if any combat situations were going to a be a regular part of their curriculum. She hadn't exactly dumped charisma, but striking up a deal with the head-strong nurse hero seemed like a long shot at best.</p><p>On the way there, Jiro passed her in the hallway, heading back to class, still looking scratched and bruised but much better than before. Her mouth opened to say something to Michaela but the wizard quickly looked away and brushed past her. She was <em>not </em>in the mood for any kind of confrontation as light-headed as she was feeling.</p><p>When Mel got to the nurse's office, she was immediately ushered to a bed, where Recovery Girl checked her over, the old woman's eyebrows furrowing and jaw setting as she went on. Mel wasn't on top of it enough to stop Recovery Girl's gentle prodding on her ribs and flinched at the bloom of pain.</p><p>"Broken ribs, young lady. Two broken ribs among other damage. And about 50% hearing loss—don't worry about that, it's temporary but…All Might let you walk here by yourself?" She demanded sternly.</p><p>"It hurts, but I'm fine. In fact, you probably don't need to heal me, if I just get a night's rest—" Michaela really didn't want to be stuck this low, but even if she could take a short rest, she would be well enough to focus somewhat in class for the rest of the day. She really didn't want to risk more exhaustion. "Your healing comes with a hell of a cost—so, w-wait—!"</p><p>Her complaints were met with pointedly ignorant ears (though Mel was the one with hearing loss) as the nurse hero used her quirk. <em>Smooch</em>! Michaela felt the relief of being brought back to full health.</p><p>Recovery Girl looked at her with a stern look with just a touch of humor. "You don't get to bargain with me when you come into my office in that kind of condition, young lady. Lay back down until the end of class, you'll be tired and sore after all that healing." But even as she held her breath and waited for the sensation immediate exhaustion, it didn't come. It seemed she had made the save against exhaustion and she was fully healed to boot. Thank Resilient. Not that she wanted to risk it.</p><p>She pushed her luck, which is to say, she did what she did best. "Thanks for that," she started reluctantly. "But I tend to take healing badly and heal pretty fast naturally. So, could I sign a, I don't know, a DNR for not healing unless I'm unconscious?"</p><p>Recovery Girl gave her a wholly unimpressed look but Mel could tell she was at least hearing her out. "First, that's nearly the opposite of what a DNR is, and that's quite inappropriate topic. But…if healing causes you more harm than good, I'd be willing to compromise with you. Don't come bleeding out of your mouth and we'll talk about natural healing, alright?"</p><p>Michaela gave her a sheepish smile, recognizing the tentative agreement they'd reached was as good as it was going to get.</p><p>Recovery Girl patted her knee and hopped off her stool. "Good, now see if you can't take a little rest here until you feel a bit better. I'll be in my office if you need anything, dearie."</p><p>Michaela had nothing to do but chill out and use Arcane recovery. Her conversation with Recovery Girl had gone leaps and bounds better than she'd expected.</p><p>About fifteen minutes later, a stretcher carried by two robots burst through the doors carrying Midoriya. Recovery Girl was already at the door waiting for them and bustled them to set him down on the next bed over. Michaela watched in poorly concealed interest as Recovery Girl assessed Midoriya's injuries—bad burns across his body and a broken limbs, and watched them fade to scratches and bruises before her eyes. Then the nurse hero bound the damaged limbs.</p><p>Michaela had leaned forward in interest without realizing because when Recovery Girl rounded on her, giving her forehead a firm flick. "Don't gawk, young lady. Not only is that horrid manners, you were just in a similar condition yourself so don't act like this is a roadside attraction! I'm going to have a stern talking to with both you once you've had a chance to rest." Then she walked out the door to meet a man outside—was that All Might? She struggled to make out his expression as the door slipped shut. He had seemed very frazzled. Clearly, the match ups hadn't gone as expected for him either.</p><p>Ten minutes later, Recovery Girl returned to her adjoining office to file paperwork, and probably to put yet another incident report into Michaela's personal file.</p><p>"Greyfen, you're still here?"</p><p>Michaela looked over at the freckled boy, who was looking over at her with one eye open. He still looked like shit, if Michaela dared say herself.</p><p>Michaela shrugged, keeping it casual. She was sitting up, leafing through her spellbook, simply because there wasn't anything else to do. She really didn't have be here any longer really, with the full heal and lack of exhaustion, she was just taking advantage of the easy place to take a short rest and if her stay dipped into English class, that wouldn't hurt either. That and putting off giving Aizawa-sensei whatever Recovery Girl had written in the note she was going to have to give to Aizawa when she got back to class. "Recovery Girl won't let me leave."</p><p>"Oh," he responded. He didn't say anything else, but it was clear from his body language he was still listening, like they were having a real conversation. She was almost offended that he was expecting her to continue the conversation, but she <em>was </em>curious how badly the battle had gone.</p><p>"I'm guessing your training session didn't go well either?" If she had been thinking at the time, she would have left Zen there so she could watch the rest of the matches. But then again, Recovery Girl might not have been happy if she'd walked back into the room to see Michaela's eyes glowing blue and her not responding to her voice.</p><p>"No, it didn't…but are you alright?"</p><p>Michaela raised an eyebrow. He looked like he'd been decked by a bugbear but he was asking her how <em>she</em> was doing? "Fine. Recovery Girl just wasn't excited to see me when I got in."</p><p>"Ah, alright then. Kaachan and I got too serious during our fight. It was…" he trailed off, itching a bandage on his face. His body spoke for itself.</p><p>"Kaachan? Is that the blond kid or engine legs?" She gave a perplexed blink.</p><p>"Ah! No, his name is Bakugo Katsuki, we've gone to school together since we were kids."</p><p>"But you beat each other senseless?"</p><p>Midoriya's hands started fidgeting more. "I…I didn't want to hurt him."</p><p>Michaela backed off with a sigh. She'd clearly stepped on a sore spot, and well, it wasn't her business anyway. She slid her legs off the bed and stood up, noting her gym uniform was still in perfect condition with annoyance. At least if it were ripped up a little, she could feel a bit better about being in the nurses' for the second time since the entrance exam. She gathered up her bag and tapped the glass on the door to Recovery Girl's smaller office and gave a quick wave and grin before ducking out.</p><p>Midoriya heard a <em>tap-tap-tap </em>of the professional hero's tiny feet as she ran into the other room just after the green-haired girl disappeared back into the hallway. Midoriya's eyes widened incredulously. <em>She's a total loose cannon!</em></p><p>"Did she—" Recovery Girl brought a hand to her forehead, looking to Midoriya who gave her a helpless look, not wanting any part in his strange classmate's apparent escape. "Well, it's for the best, I was going to send her back to class in a couple minutes anyway, since she wasn't getting rest like I told her. I'm going to have my hands full with your class this year…"</p><p>Midoriya sweat dropped uncomfortably and waved his hands in a pacifying gesture, not wanting to be grouped up with Michaela's act. "I'll do my best not to hurt myself."</p><p>"I'll believe it when I see it."</p>
<hr/><p>Michaela was less than shocked, when Aizawa-sensei dismissed everyone but her at the end of the day. She slowly sat back down in her chair, staring down at her desk with a muttered Elven curse. It was a versatile one—it could mean anything from she was experiencing a minor inconvenience, to it's more literally meaning that that a city had to flee their land due the anger of Helio for the Elves' hubris. Mel worried that her situation was closer the second than the first at the moment.</p><p>She sat still as the other students packed their bags up quickly and exited the room eagerly. A minute later, Aizawa cleared his throat, leaning up against the front of his desk. Wordlessly, he held up Recovery Girl's note between two fingers.</p><p>Finally, he sighed, placing the note to the side. "Greyfen, you went and got injured again. There's also a matter of your files. I've been meaning to talk to you about that as well." Even three rows back from him, the dread crept into Michaela, her jaw tightening and locking in place with frustration. There wasn't anything she could say in her own defense anyway.</p><p>"Let's start here," Aizawa finally says after a quiet moment. "What was that with Todoroki?"</p><p>"We got a little carried away. I wouldn't have—" she cut herself off before she could say 'dropped to 0.' "What he said bothered me, we really ended up on each other's nerves."</p><p>"I didn't get the impression he was like that. Must have been some conversation."</p><p>Michaela shrugged. "I don't even remember what it was about."</p><p>"Your records are very lacking," he said next.</p><p>Michaela blinked at the non-sequitur. She'd never been questioned like this, changing topics so quickly. Somehow, Michaela got the impression that Aizawa hadn't finished talking about the topic of the sparring incident, so she did her best to tuck it to the back of her head for later while she moved onto his latest question.</p><p>"I'm not very interesting. I was homeschooled through middle school. My family moved around a lot."</p><p>"I can tell," Aizawa sighed. "Your records show you were cleared for admittance to apply for the hero course, and of course doctor-patient confidentially is in place here so you aren't obligated to tell me but I promise I'll do what I can to accommodate, but it's in the best interest of your safety that you tell me if you have any pressing health concerns."</p><p><em>A trap, </em>Michaela thought instantly. <em>Is he trying to find an excuse to get rid of me? </em>For Mel, smaller hits became injuries, became damage, rather than just hurting for a few minutes. Without rests, it compounded. She would bet she could take a hit to the head, acid splash, or poison better than the average student. And even if she were three times more durable than a commoner, these people were way more durable than they gave themselves credit for. It was completely wild. She got the distinct impression she could drop most any heroics student from forty feet and they wouldn't splat on impact like she would.</p><p>Not that she wanted to do that—to most her classmates. Just one, or two. She shook out of her thoughts, "I'll never be a melee fighter, I know I can't take a hit—if I'm doing my job, I shouldn't have to. You…you saw how I fought in the heroes v villains?"</p><p>Aizawa gave her a nod and she continued.</p><p>"Then you know melee is my absolute last resort, and even then, never hand-to-hand. My…quirk can raise my defense but I need my components and I need to be able to use it.</p><p>"I don't have any health issues, it's just that the sparring we do feels perfectly designed to inhibit me," only when she finished did she realize she'd raised her voice, and spoke with a carefully neutral one, an appealing one that she hoped wouldn't spark any backlash by the teacher. "You saw the difference it made in today's exercise. I took down an opponent, I held Ojiro back, I protected the weapon."</p><p>Aizawa didn't look angry, he looked vaguely bored like he always did, but behind that, she got the impression he was thinking carefully, his posture had relaxed slightly as well. "It sounds like that defensive ability you have could be classified as a passive aspect of your quirk. We don't inhibit those even while non-quirk sparring, it would go against someone nature at best and be impossible at worst," he said, though he seemed to be speaking carefully, as if edging a line on something Michaela wasn't aware of. "As for your quarterstaff. I won't allow weapons in sparring yet, but within a few weeks our focus will shift into more teamwork and obstacle exercises along with weapon use and hand-to-hand sparring will be something you will be expected to do in your free-time. That's to say, as long as you can agree to rules with classmates and implement them safely, using a blunt instrument for practice sparring shouldn't be an issue."</p><p>Michaela's mouth worked open slightly to—she wasn't sure. Agree? Protest? Just like that, Aizawa had dismantled her major concerns about training, as simply as if he were assigning them homework. "So I can..?" What, use non-attack non-concentration spells during spars? Suddenly the field seemed leveled slightly. She wasn't doomed to fail, Aizawa-sensei wasn't dooming her to fail.</p><p>"You should know, however much we're frustrated the exercise went too far today, you proved to be resourceful today. A lot of things can be learned and improved, but not everyone has a mind for strategy," Aizawa said bluntly, letting his words rest in the room as they were, an observation, a mild reprimand, and the suggestion that she had what it took to do well here. Mel gave a determined nod in response.</p><p>"So, your records?" Aizawa prompted. "Anything else I should know?"</p><p>Michaela suddenly felt the urge to give something back to him but she had nothing to offer. Nothing that wouldn't make her seem guilty somehow. "…Nothing that's not on there already. I moved here with my parents six months ago. They wanted me to have the chance to follow my dream," the lie stung Michaela's throat.</p><p>Aizawa-sensei met her eyes at that, studying her carefully for a moment before nodding towards the door. "Thanks for talking to me about this. Go on home. We'll probably have a busy day tomorrow."</p><p>Michaela nodded, grabbing her bag and her fey gecko, which Aizawa quirked an eyebrow at, but didn't mention, and headed out the door.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I roll for any of Michaela's successes and failures so I'll list nat 20's and 1's.</p><p>Natural 20</p><p>21- Deception to deflect Aizawa's question about her records.</p><p>Note: Nat 19 to persuade recovery girl (23). This girl's getting her way more than I expected.</p><p>Please let me know what you think!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Surprise Round</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Michaela has plenty more encounters (of the social sort) and one that is less than social at a seemingly innocuous USJ trip.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On the fourth day of class, Michaela made the mistake of getting to school early. She dropped her bag onto her desk with little care, Zen scurrying out of the bag's pocket, up her arm and into her shirt with an irritated shriek she didn't react to. She sat down in her chair, noting she still had seven minutes before class started. That was a first for her, with the train schedule, she was in class just a couple minutes before Aizawa slunk into the room.</p>
<p>Michaela had just started reviewing her notes when she jumped at the tap on her shoulder. She looked up and nearly winced to see who it was. In all her fading-bruised-face-glory, Jirou was standing to her side, looking at her with a frown. After a moment of staring back at the purple-haired girl, the musician seemed to realize Michaela wasn't going to offer anything to say.</p>
<p>"Sooo…how's your hearing?" Jirou asked.</p>
<p>Michaela's mouth pursed slightly like she'd eaten something distasteful. "Are you in any position to ask with your face all bruised?"</p>
<p>The musician stared at her classmate for a moment before huffing in laughter. <em>Is this her way of showing concern or something? She's not girl-Bakugo after all. </em>"I had to tap you on your shoulder because you didn't hear me at 55 decibels. The ringing in your ears should go away within 24 hours. Sorry, I didn't hold back."</p>
<p>Michaela may have taken her words to be snide another time, but somehow, this girl seemed to have a similar earnestness as Midoriya had yesterday in the infirmary. She wasn't trying to be an asshole. So she bit back her instinct to give a rude response. "It's fine…I didn't either. I probably couldn't afford to."</p>
<p>That comment make Jirou smirk, stretching at the yellowing bruises on her face caused by Michaela's hanbo. Michaela offered her a very strained smile before thankfully, Aizawa slunk into the room with the lack of energy and enthusiasm the students had come to expect.</p>
<p>When the underground hero announced that they were going to pick a class president, Michaela considered voting for Midoriya but voted for Yaoyorozu instead. She didn't feel guilty for not voting for her friendly acquaintance because, well, he'd never know and she thought Yaoyorozu would do an equally good job, and she was a bit more mature.</p>
<p>As it turned out when they were reading off the tallies, someone had voted for Michaela. When she looked around in surprise, Kirishima was giving her a thumbs up and she figured she'd probably pulled a vote from him. Michaela smothered any twinge of light-heartedness at the literal vote of confidence as she scowled. What made him look at her and decide she was going to want to be responsible for this whole class of impulse-ridden no-good kids? Between them twelve bones had already been broken in four days. No way she was going to be taking responsibility for any of their ill-advised actions. She already had enough to account for with her <em>own </em>ill-advised actions.</p>
<p>She allowed a breath of relief when a tie was announced between Iida and Yaoyorozu, who, after a moment of discussing between themselves, decided on being co-presidents. The rest of the morning covered introductory lessons. She had several answers to the harder questions Aizawa presented. It helped that she'd gotten ahead in their textbook yesterday and it wasn't too difficult to see how the AISS (Assess, Investigate, Search, Secure) method applied practically in natural disaster vs villain crisis.</p>
<p>Midoriya caught up with her on the way to lunch to ask her to clarify a point she'd had on investigating a scene and how it differed from Search. Although, personally she had a theory 'Investigate' was put in to avoid a less fortunate acronym. After Michaela explained, he rapid-fired another question out of left-field.</p>
<p>"Kirishima told me you can send messages telepathically, is it really true?"</p>
<p>Michaela first blinked in surprise, looked up, sending a mental curse to the red-headed boy, then finally reached into her component's pouch and found the piece of copper wire easily. Midoriya's eyes were glued to her hands as she gave the wire an easy twist. Yet another trick revealed. With her luck, they'd know she was from another plane by Monday next week. Midoriya was just one to keep asking questions. She cast Message.</p>
<p>
  <em>Yeah, something like that. I have to know which direction someone's in, and even then it can't be too far, but yes, I can.</em>
</p>
<p>Midoriya's eyes went wide. <em>Can you hear me? This is amazing. That's like Mandalay's quirk, if it's a shorter range, but I really can't believe that you can just—</em></p>
<p>She raised her hands in defeat. "Sorry, the spell can only broadcast 25 words each way, I didn't hear the rest of that." But Midoriya didn't seem to hear <em>her</em> now, audibly mumbling about something, hand on his chin. She gave a sigh that would better fit someone four times her age and resigned herself to watch where the hero fanboy was walking, not trusting that he would notice people in front of him until he tripped into them.</p>
<p>"Do you want a piece of candy?" Uraraka put her hand out to offer Michaela a chocolate. She blinked, suddenly realizing the conversation with Midoriya had gotten them almost all the way into the cafeteria and in guiding the muttering youth, she was standing right at their table. <em>Too late to back down now</em>, she thought, as she steeled her will and sat at the table with them.</p>
<p>Michaela stared suspiciously at the candy. "Is…something wrong with it?"</p>
<p>"Huh?" Uraraka blinked in shock at her for a few seconds, and Midoriya sweat-dropped.</p>
<p>"Nothing," Michaela hastily amended, accepting the candy and putting it in her pocket. Maybe as an emergency ration, or she could feed it to Zen. He would be pretty cute trying to gum a piece of chocolate.</p>
<p>She suddenly felt like she should say something as three sets of eyes were watching her. "Thanks, Ochako."</p>
<p>Uraraka looked a bit startled at that, but then she offered a shy but cheerful smile. "Of course."</p>
<p>Iida stiffened his back and raised his voice like he did…all the time. "Greyfen-san it is my duty to inform you in case you are not aware, that Japanese custom is to refer to someone by their last name. To do otherwise is deeply personal!" His arm started with its signature motion.</p>
<p>Michaela blinked in response, glancing over to Midoriya for confirmation. He nodded shyly.</p>
<p>"Those aren't your last names? Iida Tenya, Midoriya Izuku?"</p>
<p>"I see the confusion—the truth is that we provide our family name first when introducing ourselves."</p>
<p>"Oh. Oh," Michaela pinched the bridge of her nose. How many people had see addressed in the last few days? Luckily, she was a total loner so not a huge amount. Midoriya and Iida's reactions, though. That made more sense now. And everyone defaulting to calling her by her last name. She'd thought it was strange, but she hadn't put it together. But until now, people had just played off of it, so she hadn't had a clue. Just how bad had her Insight have been for such an oversight? She couldn't help but feel an itch of embarrassment crawl up her throat despite not looking to make friends.</p>
<p>"Greyfen, it would be alright with me if you call me Izuku, Uraraka calls me Deku, so it's not too different," she heard Midoriya try to placate her.</p>
<p>She raised her head, her mask of indifference slowly shifting back into place.</p>
<p>Uraraka nodded in approval at Midoriya before turning back to the wizard. "I feel the same way, I think it's cute you call me Ochako, it's like we're close friends already!" Uraraka turned to back to the boys, fists raised to her chest. "And if you want you can call me Ochako too!"</p>
<p>Iida's blush returned. "No, no! Not necessary, Uraraka-san! We're classmates, after all!"</p>
<p>Michaela spoke up again, cautiously. "Where I'm from, we use first names. You can call me Michaela, or Mel for short."</p>
<p>"This is too informal, I—" Iida stood up to protest when an ear-splitting alarm went off. In a split second, Iida went from protesting to scanning the room. Students were shooting out of their seats and tripping into each other in shock. Michaela's instincts made her want to avoid the grouping and she began lifting out of her seat to move <em>away </em>from the exit. AoE would be <em>devastating </em>in such a large crowd<em>. But </em>Iida's hand struck out and grabbed her arm faster than she could react. "We must remain calm and make sure everyone can safely reach the basement level!" he stated.</p>
<p>Mel felt Zen scurry into her uniform to hide from the chaos. There wasn't time to argue— and she didn't have any spells that would assist with the escape. She relented and stuck with Ochako and Izuku, watching all the while for the imperceptible danger. Iida had Uraraka use her quirk on him and he led everyone to the exit by standing above it like an emergency exit.</p>
<p>Not soon after, it was announced it had been a group of reporters who had gotten in and it was, at least in part, a false alarm, which explained all the investigation checks that were coming up empty for a <em>wizard</em>, of all classes! Still, she was just relieved that they weren't being attacked en masse at their level.</p>
<p>Thanks to Iida's fast thinking, all the students safely filtered out of the lunch room until teachers came by and informed them of the false alarm. By then, lunch was over and the teachers told them to get food if they still needed it and head back to their classrooms.</p>
<p>Now, she had rations so she wasn't worried about food but she'd definitely forgotten her notes when she'd been pulled along by their new co-class president. She retraced her steps, grabbed her notes, and started to head back to class before she could be late. She pulled out her spellbook to work on a strategy for coming across an enemy with a strong AoE. As it was, if there had been a real threat and the students had all been that close together…No, she wasn't going there. She admonished herself, throwing up a mental wall against a vision of a giant firestorm coming down upon the student body. Her fingers whited against the sturdy cover of her spellbook. Here she was, mixing past with present again, she had a lot to learn…</p>
<p>Evidently, more than she realized. She hadn't been watching were she was walking, failed any perception check that may have helped her, and just barely was able to jerk out of the way of hitting someone in the hallway, clipping their side and nearly tripping herself in the process, spellbook skidding out of her hand. She looked up in irritation but froze when she realized the hulking figure was none other than All Might.</p>
<p>He looked slightly alarmed and apologetic even though she had been the one to run into him. "Ah, don't worry about knocking into me, young Greyfen, I've taken a lot worse than that. I assure you, I can take it." He said, humor in his voice, then he stooped down to pick her silver and blue spellbook off the ground, causing her to freeze in panic again. As a wizard, her spellbook was her strength. Without it, she could function for a little while, but wouldn't be able to change spells or learn new ones. Losing one was a great loss, mentally, emotionally, and monetarily. It looked no larger than a romance novella in the hero's massive hand.</p>
<p>The blond hero peered at it curiously as he handed it back and Michaela pulled out of her surprise to snatch it back and hold it to her chest. All Might's eyebrow quirked slightly but he didn't mention it.</p>
<p>Suddenly needing to distract him, Michaela spoke up. "I'm surprised you remembered my name."</p>
<p>"You did well in class yesterday, you certainly surprised us with your quick thinking!" The hero said. Michaela waited for him to mention the disaster of how badly she had gotten hurt, which had surely ended with him getting some kind of admonishment but the hero didn't say anything, simply smiling brightly at her.</p>
<p>She saw the moment with a skeletal All Might, looking so different from this one, a figure coming in behind him with an attack, and her eye twitched slightly as she forced a small smile before speeding off. "Thanks, better get to class."</p>
<p>All Might just had to be equally considerate in his hero persona and just walking around the school with no reporters to watch, didn't he? It made his fate that much worse. And that much less likely to happen if she could do anything, just divert that single blow.</p>
<p>Her job might not be done until she graduated but she had been shown that vision for a reason, and no adventurer's reason was to stand around watching.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Michaela climbed on the train on her way to school on Friday when she noticed Jiro standing with headphones in on the other side of the train car. They had the same commute? Michaela slowly looked away and shuffled so she was facing away from her as if she hadn't noticed.</p>
<p>Just when Michaela thought she was in the clear and she hadn't been noticed, the musician came to grab the support pole she was using.</p>
<p>"Did you just pretend not to notice me? Logistically how is that supposed to work? We're like twenty minutes from our stop."</p>
<p>Michaela blinked, baffled. Why did all the students in her class have to be so different from the milquetoast but competitive loners at Snapdrake Academy? "You…saw I was avoiding you so you came over here?" She felt the need to clarify.</p>
<p>"Yeah, first of all, we're both aiming to be heroes and we're classmates. Second, if I'm going to be a hero, I'm not going to let it slide if things are weird because I hurt you in practice." She snapped her fingers lightly at the side of Michaela's head. The snap was just audible over the quiet din of the levitated train car. Michaela pulled back just slightly, her small scowl becoming more pronounced. "Can you hear this? How about this?"</p>
<p>Mel gave a nod as she registered a low-tone hum. "I'm not—my hearing came back fine—I mean..." She trailed off, looking at the traces of yellow bruising that had all but disappeared and the freshly healed scratch that had been on Jirou's chin. If she hadn't known where to look, she might not have seen it. The burns on the girl's arms from the last firebolt she had shot when escaping with the missile had been healed completely by Recovery Girl but she remembered seeing Ojiro help her out of the practice area. Seeing the burns, remembering the fire she'd so casually thrown at the girl. Dangerous. She of all people should know that. She had her own scars to show it. "I'm not mad? If anything I-" Michaela bit her lip in irritation, she was just repeating what she'd said to the other girl yesterday.</p>
<p>But Jiro grinned. "It's literally nothing. I don't think you're as aloof and dense as you act."</p>
<p>"Dense?" Michaela protested weakly.</p>
<p>Jiro hummed agreeably. "It's fine to be a loner but some people in our class take it too far, you know? Like Bakugo and Todoroki. We're all stuck with each other for the next three years."</p>
<p>So Jiro saw a bond because they went to the same school. Well, there was the difference between them. At Michaela's wizarding academy, it wasn't unheard of to use their magic to get the upper hand over classmates. If you could charm other students into missing class or giving you test answers, it was as good as applying yourself in practicals to the teachers. And as for the teachers, she'd trusted the dean, right up to moment where he'd slammed her against the wall of the hallway, covering her mouth so she couldn't use even a cantrip to defend herself as he incanted her into a <em>different plane of existence </em>without a word of explanation. Like she was an experiment. No, Michaela didn't trust the teachers or the students. Not with her life at least. For now, she'd give them enough leeway that she'd walk with a strangely blunt girl to school.</p>
<hr/>
<p>It was Friday and she was very much excited for her first weekend, if only to have a better chance to study, and there had been a few libraries she had been wanting to check out when she had the time.</p>
<p>Aizawa announced at the beginning of the day that we would be going to the Unforeseen Simulation Joint after lunch. Michaela's eyebrows rose—the acronym was very cool but the name itself was pretty…clunky.</p>
<p>They had a quick lunch and before they knew it, the students were accepting their costumes back, now with minor adjustments, Michaela's with a strap for a reinforced walnut <em>hanbo</em>—a two-foot quarterstaff. Evidently, the support class had been sent their fight footage because her updated costume had come with hand wraps for fighting with her hanbo, but she elected not to use them. She certainly wasn't looking to multi-class monk—it was just until she had the magical reserves to cast more a few spells a day.</p>
<p>They all hopped into a bus with Aizawa to reach the massive dome she'd seen but hadn't gotten close to yet. Michaela reflected that she really had to do a better job of exploring the campus, a <em>real</em> adventurer would have checked this place out days ago.</p>
<p>Once they exited the bus, Mel got her first look at pro-hero Thirteen, who introduced himself and started to explain the different rescue zones. Mel had to admit, it was interesting how all the practicals had targeted different aptitudes, presumably so the teachers would be able to know where every student needed improvement rather than just training. She figured this test would be tough for the hot-heads like Bakugo, especially if it was only locating and securing victims. It stood to reason that would be the case, as they'd just learned the AISS active scene protocol. Before Mel had enough time to go further into thought, Aizawa-sensei and Thirteen froze in tandem. Not half-a-second later, figures flickered into view around the class. The one who appeared to be the leader by their formation had disembodied hands clutching his face and neck, and shoulders, then there was one with necrotic-like energy obscuring any face he may have had, and a third—something that she imagined an undead owlbear might look like, if the top of its skull had been removed. Michaela shuddered at the thought.</p>
<p>The students started, just not as fast as the teachers.</p>
<p>"Get the kids out of here!" Thirteen moved to block the way. The void man whisked his hand outward at the same time and before a thought could be completed, the ground disappeared. Michaela tried to move out of the way— she was close to the edge of the circle, but there was nothing to jump off of and she fell through with a lurch. And then she was upside down. And falling on her face a couple feet above the ground.</p>
<p>She groaned as she secured her elbows under her. This was the second time she had been shifted against her will. The repetition did not make it any better. She rattled off a long and grammatically incorrect patchwork of gnomish curses she'd heard over the years from Guildmaster Whisperfoot as she slapped embedded pieces of gravel from her palms.</p>
<p>"Zen, are you alive?" An irritable hiss at her neck answered the affirmative. The wizard pulled herself to her knees, looking around. Fire was burning all around. Her breath caught. Aizawa had called it the conflagration zone? Rubble and fire and smoke in the air. Everywhere. But there were clearly more hazards here than planned by the teachers. No, this is what the villains had planned. Divide and conquer. They split the party. As Mel looked up, a group of fire-suited and masked villains took aim.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. USJ Start</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The dry sensation in her mouth was the first sign that all the ash was getting to her. She imagined if this were a normal day, they would be given protective gear to prepare for the zone, but today was anything but. Her skin prickled in discomfort at the phantom aches under her skin at the sweltering ambient temperature. Her own skin reflected red with the fiery light dancing all around her like burns. And there, there were several figures hazmat-like suits illuminated in the firelight. There were five, maybe six and they had taken aim at her. Her heart felt tight in her chest. If she had had time, maybe she could have prepared herself for this zone—</p>
<p>A figure seemed to come out of nowhere, latching onto her upper arm with a vice grip and dragging her along without missing a beat. She fought to adapt to the speed and direction but in her intense surprise, hadn't tried to pull away. It was the kid she'd gotten in trouble fighting the other day, yanking her along, face set grim and irate. Todoroki Shouto. Moments later, he ducked down and was yanking her down under a fallen concrete pillar for partial cover.</p>
<p>"What are you doing? Don't freeze up!" he hissed. His hand was painfully cold on her wrist but it forced her to gather her wits.</p>
<p>Freezing isn't the issue, she thought sourly, before her mouth could form words. She dug her knuckle into the side of her leg, hard, forcing her thoughts back in order. She'd activated mage armor at the beginning of the day and had had time to recover the spell slot. Maybe they had a chance at…no, she wasn't going there.</p>
<p>Slowly, she relaxed enough to direct her eyes from the tight hold on her wrist to their surroundings. She could tell this fire was being fed through some means built into the zone, sitting on her knees as she was, she was low enough to hear the steady stream of gas coming from tiny holes in the ground. There was no flammable debris on the ground to spread the fire beyond the intended areas. The conflagration zone was nothing but a set. It was her hot shop back in Slateport, the air burning, fires set to a potent blaze, but ultimately contained. As long as you were careful, the zone wouldn't hurt you. Yes, there was nothing here to burn but herself, and the gunmen. Bullets pelted overhead. After a moment, Mel realized that wasn't quite right—it had been more like a sizzle. Fire bullets? It seemed as likely as a flying metal projectile being fired from a hand cannon. Todoroki dropped her wrist and her hand flew to her back, pulling her hanbo from her back. Todoroki glanced over to the approaching gunmen, ice surging.</p>
<p>"I'll take care of them," he growled, as he spoke, his hand moved and ice skated across the ground, growing upward to encapsulate three of the villain's lower legs. The sounds of fire shots redoubled. One of the fire shots was barely deflected from hitting Todoroki's face by a sheet of ice. One whizzed by Mel's ear. The attacks were starting to wear down their shelter. Up twenty feet was better cover, a fallen support beam over a mound of broken cement chunks. All that was between them and it was one trooper who had gone for a better angle. As long as they weren't holding attacks, she should be in the clear. She'd have to go past him but with the ice holding him up to his knees, he'd be incapacitated. The lowered chance of AoO was worth the risk.</p>
<p>"I'm moving," Mel warned, not a moment before she took off in a run. The second she left cover, she saw a blast of fire coming straight for her. Everything seemed to slow down as it approached, reflecting in her yellow eyes. Three spells were all she had. And an unbelievable amount of enemies. She had twenty-one allies, whom the villains were doing their best to separate her from. Only three spells. Did she dare?</p>
<p>She had just one moment to mutter words—as naturally as a curse would come out of a regular person in her circumstance, an incantation left the wizard's lips. "Absorb Elements!" she hissed. As the fire approached hitting her in the face, a whirl of wind seemed to suck up most of the fire, leaving what was left to singe the sleeve off her shoulder.</p>
<p>As the brief flash of fire resistance faded the remaining fire surged into the hanbo she was holding in her other hand. As she hurtled at the minion frozen in her way, she extended the staff to her side, braced, and swung into the minion's stomach. The magical fire burning on the staff crackled with heat as it impacted. She didn't have time to think about it. The minion ragdolled backward to the ground, feet still partially encased in ice. Michaela kept moving and ducked behind a bent metal beam for some cover, panting after the magic-enhanced attack. Mel heard a quiet hiss from Todoroki as one of the beams hit him as well. He reached down to the ground and created a wave of ice which enveloped two minions—one fully and one to the waist. Three were now rooted to the ground, one unconscious, and two still up. Then Todoroki was moving to the new cover as well, crouching down just long enough to charge up more ice. He seemed to be struggling with the heat. Worse, the ice on the first three minions was already melting. More than ever, she was confident they'd known their strengths and weaknesses and found the worst places to put them. She was surprised the Asui wasn't with them as well.</p>
<p>Todoroki didn't spare her another look until she had channeled her magic into her own speciality. One that created. Out from her empty clenched fist came sparkling yellow light and a thin dagger made of yellow light appeared in her hand. She held it tight, feeling just as real as the staff in her other hand.</p>
<p>"What is that?" Coming from the Class 1-A's biggest recluse, it sound annoyingly like a command but Michaela pushed that aside.</p>
<p>"Conjuration. I can create simple things. It's kind of something I'm still working out, it's new," she said, testing the weight of the dagger (even wizards are naturally proficient in daggers. They're just incredibly easy to throw with precise aim) and slipping it into her waist sash as a last resort. A conjured item like this would disappear if it dealt any damage.</p>
<p>Todoroki made a sound which almost sounded like mild interest and annoyance and Michaela had to restrain herself from saying anything. Then, out of nowhere, a blast hit Todoroki from through a opening in the barrier, and directly into his shoulder, sending him hard on his back. The next flew over his prone form as he lay there, stunned.</p>
<p>"Get up!" I fired a firebolt at half-frozen enemy, the powerful blast sizzling off his fire-retardant suit but still powerful enough to sear through it to the minion's skin. He was jerked off his feet, tumbling into a pile of refuse. Todoroki propped himself up, anger clear on his features, and slammed his foot in the ground, creating an ice slick that knocked two of the remaining opponents onto their backs and spinning out. Small spikes started emerging from the ground, stabbing at the minions as they yelled out in shock. Todoroki's ice extended their cover, creating a wall with several small holes for Michaela to fire from available. It almost felt like an archer's tower. One that was slowly melting and covered only one side. Still, the action seemed to exhaust him.</p>
<p>Michaela turned to Todoroki desperately. She was unsurprised, but ill at ease, to see he looked just as distressed. "We need to run. We may be able to take them but we won't be any help to the others if we take more damage."</p>
<p>Todoroki balked. "If we leave them, they'll just come after us or someone else. I'm not running away."</p>
<p>Michaela used her action to stick her head out and fire at them. She nailed one already hurt by Todoroki's ice in the stomach and he went down. Todoroki yanked Mel down behind cover as two shots went wide.</p>
<p>"Fine, we fight, but carefully."</p>
<p>Michaela popped out of hiding to shoot again but her aim was off. She was saving her last two spells. If they could get back to the plaza, she could help with battlefield control and she was still kicking herself for wasting a spell by being hit. The bird-bear creature had practically been drooling. No way he had any intelligence, wisdom, or charisma to make his saves.</p>
<p>She charged up another firebolt in her hand and pulled out of cover just long enough to fire, another two shots missing her. Even though their aim wasn't anything special, Todoroki had taken a couple hits and would no doubt be smoldering if ice wasn't fighting to coat his body in places. Several more bolts and a few more ice attacks had all six enemies laid out of the ground in varying states of consciousness. The wall Todoroki had created less than a minute before was already beginning to collapse in on itself.</p>
<p>Todoroki grunted as he created ice to hold them in place. Michaela wasn't sure what difference it would make in this heat—the wall Todoroki had created less than a minute before was already beginning to collapse on itself. From the other edge of their melting shelter, Todoroki hissed as three of the minions fired fire bullets at each other's ice. The ice sublimated with a loud hiss.</p>
<p>Michaela fired a couple more firebolts, only intending to keep them occupied while Todoroki's ice crept forward. Even with Todoroki's ice slowed, the arcing firebolts were enough to push the remaining minions close enough Todoroki's ice slick that he could trap them again. This time, the ice was reinforced again and again, and the fallen blaster guns frozen in blocks of ice on the ground until Todoroki was panting with exertion. The minions' faces were free to shout expletives. Right, they couldn't kill anyone. It would probably be frowned upon if she were to go up to them and knock them all out right now, too. At a different time, she might have argued for that, but she didn't want to get any closer to the minions. They were effectively taken care of.</p>
<p>That left the issue of where to go, they could barely make out the edge of the zone in the thick smoke. They headed in the closest direction of the edge of the zone, Mel nearly immediately straining to keep up.</p>
<p>Five minutes of running had them out of the zone and skirting around the outside of the area. The central plaza still wasn't visible and even though they could see much better now that they were out of the smoke, they still couldn't make out where the windowed outer wall was. Maybe another zone was blocking it, they couldn't make out the supports, or maybe the USJ was just that big.</p>
<p>Todoroki growled. "We can't waste time looking, we need to split up."</p>
<p>"No, we don't," Michaela argued, pointing up. Far above them, thick struts met at the top of the domed ceiling. "The central plaza was in the middle of this building, so we need to go to where the dome is at its zenith and we'll find the others."</p>
<p>Todoroki blinked, temporarily losing his irritable look for something more thoughtful and acquiescing. They took off again toward what should be the center of the dome. By the time they were close, Mel's steady speed was putting her shoulder to shoulder with their classes' ace. Strange world.</p>
<p>Half the class was already there—Midoriya, Asui, Uraraka, and others. And so were the villains, droves of them were facing down Aizawa. As soon as Michaela came within 120 feet, she slowed down to cast Message on Midoriya to save precious seconds on exposition once she got there.</p>
<p>Midoriya, what's happening? Who are they? Are we running or fighting? Remember, 25 words.</p>
<p>Fighting, Iida went to get more teachers. Teleportation, touch-based disintegration, and strength quirks… Latter wants to destroy All Might and…physical attacks don't affect him.</p>
<p>Bravo, Midoriya. He'd been counting his words. And there was help on the way. Maybe they could prevent a TPK today, if only if the other teachers could get here in time. Aizawa was holding the many-handed man back along with underlings and taking a beating because of it. He was clearly exhausted. Midoriya and Tokoyami were facing off against the bird bear, Todoroki sprinting ahead to join them. Mel caught up soon after.</p>
<p>"The strength-enhanced one?" she confirmed.</p>
<p>Midoriya nodded. "Noumu. And the guy with all the hands is Shigaraki."</p>
<p>Mel turned to look at the many-handed man. He looked back at them, a wide slash of a smile curled across his face under the severed hand. His eyes narrowed to slits. For better or for far, far worse, Class 1-A had Shigaraki's attention.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Villainy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">During the time it took for Michaela and Todoroki to close the distance to the Midoriya and the others, things had taken a turn for the worse. Aizawa had finished off the lackeys and run for Shigaraki. After what couldn’t have been more than two blows, Aizawa jumped back and Mel saw that something was horribly wrong with their teacher’s elbow. It was as if all the skin there was just…missing. Mel skid to a stop next to the group of students. A quick glance showed they were all paralyzed in fear. Even Midoriya, who had been keeping it together moments ago was entirely trapped his own head. She could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears for how hard he was thinking.</p><p class="p1">That bird-faced monstrosity—Noumu--lumbered behind Shigaraki and Aizawa. Aizawa, in the poor shape he was in, didn't notice. She couldn’t tell if her classmates processed it at all. They were all so strong during practice and in sparring that for them to just stop here, in this crisis, watching while they were in the greatest danger of their lives, it didn’t make sense.</p><p class="p1">Michaela felt as if the world around her had paused and her classmates, and even her teacher, were frozen in place. Not the noumu, who raised a heavy handto crash down on their teacher. Michaela's fingers deftly pulled a blackened twig from her pouch, weaving and casting <em>witch bolt </em>in one moment. A beam of crackling blue energy lanced from her palm directly into the noumu’s face, and stayed there. The noumu groaned in a crackling voice but did no more to react as its hand slammed down on Aizawa-sensei’s head and held his arm in the other. The snap of something was audible. The students next to her went even more rigid.</p><p class="p1">Shigaraki’s eyes followed the sustained lightning arc between her and the noumu. The noumu shook his head furiously as if that would cast aside the attack. No, it was a minute long spell, as long as she could keep focus. She didn’t think so highly of herself to think she could fight the creature but she sure as hell could distract from the prey it had prone beneath him.</p><p class="p1">“Would you look at that,” Shigaraki said on seeing the party of students gathered. Midoriya, Tokoyami, Asui, Todoroki, and Michaela. “Looks like the NPCs have stopped glitching!”</p><p class="p1">Michaela’s jaw opened in shock despite the terrible situation they'd found themselves in. She’d never been accused of being an NPC in her life! First an Extra, now an NPC, where were these entitled assholes coming from? She burned to throw a firebolt at him but she couldn’t lose concentration on witch bolt.  “I’ll show you ‘Playable!’” Michaela yelled through gritted teeth, funneling all her frustration into the lightning arcing at the mutant bird creature, into a secondary blitz of lightning.</p><p class="p1">The edges of a grin showed from behind the hand on his face.“ Young heroes, always in such a hurry to die,” he said, charging straight at the group of students. They had yet to twitch a muscle, though Midoriya looked like he was popping blood vessels in his brain.</p><p class="p1">Michaela could see just past Shigaraki’s approaching form to the noumu and her teacher. The noumu was using his spare arm to try and bat away the lightning. She needed just another three seconds before it caused damage again, and that was three seconds that their teacher, their only chance of survival, wasn’t being ripped limb from limb.</p><p class="p1">A moment later, she felt the pressure of a hand closing around her face like someone rather aggressive would palm a grapefruit. Up this close she could see , wide eyes staring her down beneath a hand, similarly, she supposed, to what he was seeing himself. The hand on his face was close enough she could smell the formaldehyde, she could see the long puffy scratches of irritated skin on his neck. The dryness of the palm pressed across her face, pressing on her nose.</p><p class="p1">It was four seconds since her last action, she just needed to hold out—any grabbing or writhing she did before then would be ineffectual. She wasn’t breaking a grapple either, she’d have to give up her witch bolt. Besides a twitch of her eye, she stayed stony-faced. Judging by the speed Aizawa had taken damage to his elbow, she should be able last long enough for her turn to come, give <em>anyone </em>a chance to pull this in their favor. It wouldn’t scar. She hadn’t scarred since she’d taken a Class. Commoners were one thing, adventurers’ healing was superhuman in comparison. It immediately started to burn on several points of her face, starting as extreme itchiness and skyrocketing into sheer pain.</p><p class="p1">“You’re just going to let me use my quirk on your face? You’re a funny girl,” the villain said. One second…She felt the skin over her cheekbones and above her eyes <em>scald</em> as the skin started to disintegrate—and <em>pop! </em>the pain was sharp enough, she had underestimated—the lightning fizzled out of her hand. She couldn’t see Aizawa beyond Shigaraki and she didn’t want to. It’d kill him. It was over.</p><p class="p1">Then it stopped all at once. At first she wondered who else’s quirk could stop Shigaraki because she thought there was no way it was their teacher. But even through the spaces between Shigaraki’s fingers, she could see the horror and shock on the student’s faces—it hadn’t been them. She registered the disappointment in Shigaraki’s eyes but she imagined the look in hers was worse. Shigaraki looked back at Aizawa-sensei in surprise, muttering something she didn’t process. Beyond him, she could now see Aizawa was staring intently at Shigaraki, his eyes glowing red beyond the blood pouring down his face, hair standing on end.</p><p class="p1">She’d lost concentration on her witch bolt. Her best card to play, one she could use as long as she needed to, just because she’d taken a few points of damage. Yes, losing the spell was harder than sinking her glowing dagger into Shigaraki’s stomach.</p><p class="p1">Maybe the villain had expected more panic and less opportunity from the freshman student, but whatever it was, he didn’t see it coming. Neither did Aizawa, or the other students. Michaela reached out and held the Shigaraki’s lower back firmly with one hand, joining the host of hands already clutching the villain’s frame. In her other hand, she pushed the dagger to the hilt into his stomach. The conjured golden blade shattering back into light on being used. She distantly heard the Noumu roar and something slam into the ground—hard.</p><p class="p1">At the same moment, Shigaraki jerks back just a hair’s width away from being hit in the face by a blur of blue—it’s Midoriya’s punch. Michaela backs up several feet, grateful to have someone interpose. <em>Midoriya's definitely a Fighter, maybe I should keep him around...</em>  she starts to think, then the noumu is on Midorya and his punch is completely subverted. The mutation’s reaction is akin to if Michaela had tried punching it.</p><p class="p1">Michaela feels arms gently wrap around her bicep, and try to pull her back. She looks at Asui, who is shaking slightly. “Let’s get you back, gero.”</p><p class="p1">Michaela looks at the frog girl for a moment, wondering what she must look like, before shaking her head and firmly pushing Asui away. “My health's fine.” It was true, she was above two-thirds of her health. It was the manner in which it happened that was the worst part.</p><p class="p1">Asui didn’t look convinced, but in the end, it wasn’t Michaela’s job to convince Asui, and certainly not in the middle of a battle. She could see the unconscious heap that was their teacher. “You and Tokoyami need to get Aizawa. Or he doesn’t have a chance.”</p><p class="p1">Finally, Todoroki slammed his hand down—always the same hand and foot, as if his quirk only worked on one side of his body—and shot off a dozen ice spikes, encapsulating Noumu’s legs and arms. The creature roars as he rips his arm, then another, out of the ice. Asui and Tokoyami went for Aizawa, picking up the unresponsive form between them and sprinting away.</p><p class="p1">Michaela moved near Todoroki to stay out of his way for the next wave of freeze. The flames of another firebolt flickered at Mel’s fingertips. The cold blast surged forward again, barely skirting Midoriya, who didn’t even notice them.</p><p class="p1">Then Todoroki looked at Michaela. “Why do you use fire?”</p><p class="p1">Michaela’s eyebrow quirked as she shot off the firebolt. She’d hoped to hit Shigaraki, but Noumu stepped in front and the attack singed slightly, but caused Noumu to roar again. ‘Bingo,’ as they would say on this plane.</p><p class="p1">Todoroki pointedly looked at her shoulder. Her sleeve had burned away in the conflagration zone, revealing the edge of uneven, pink skin, which started near the point of her shoulder and continued hidden across her shoulder blade. For a moment, she wished she had anything of a sleeve left to cover it.</p><p class="p1">“I could tell how much you hate fire in the conflagration zone, I didn’t need to see a scar to tell. So why are you using it?”</p><p class="p1">Michaela paused preparing another fire bolt, the magical approximation of the real thing playing at her fingers.</p><p class="p1">“What do you mean? It clearly hates it so I have to use it. Whether I want to or not isn’t important right—” Michaela freezes. Todoroki was the son of Endeavor, he only used one side of his body for the ice, Michaela watches a piece of ice break and melt off his skin, entranced. It’s less than an instant but it feels much longer before she says, “If you—you have both fire and ice, being afraid or hating it isn’t a good reason. If you’re afraid of being burned, harness it to fight back—if you hate it because it hurt your family, control it to protect others. But if it’s something other than that…” Michaela paused to reign in her temper. If she pushed him too far, it was a lost cause. “You need to decide what our lives are worth.”</p><p class="p1">Todoroki opened his mouth to respond. He never got there because a shadow appeared over them.</p><p class="p1">They had both lost focus just a single moment in the heat of their debate and with only Midoriya up close to distract Noumu, it’d taken his chance. The ice shattered completely, the Noumu reaching out, closing the distance between himself and the two fire-users and swatting a giant, warped hand up. In her reaction, Michaela sent up <em>shield, </em>a barrier just in front of her in hopes of stopping the blow. It shattered the barrier, slamming into Mel and Todoroki, sending them flying and rolling fifteen feet away.</p><p class="p1">Mel felt the sensation of leaving her stomach behind and the side of her head acquainting with a torn up slab of concrete stopping her momentum completely and leaving her prone. Then she registered the pain of Noumu’s punch. Ten bludgeoning damage in one hit. She was barely conscious.</p><p class="p1">She distantly registered Midoriya was charging over and yelling. Idiot. He was just going to end up like the rest of them unless he had some ace up his sleeve. Still, her turn had come up, and concussed as she might be, she would never in her right mind let a turn pass her by. She looked at Todoroki, sprawled out ten feet away in a heap regretfully, stood up on unsteady feet, and fired another firebolt. Miss. She narrowed her eyes, trying to re-assess. Aim way off.</p><p class="p1">Midoriya got to her side and Mel shoved his arm away when he tried to steady her.</p><p class="p1">“Are you alright, Greyfen?”</p><p class="p1">“I can still fight, I just can’t take another hit or I’m out. Don’t suppose you have any tricks up your sleeve? Maybe a cleric spell?”</p><p class="p1">He shook his head, frowning at her. “No, my quirk doesn’t work against him.”</p><p class="p1">Michaela resisted the urge to shake him and yell ‘THEN WHY ARE YOU HERE?’ in his face. From the way the boy balked and stepped slightly back, he saw it on her face.</p><p class="p1">She redirected her anger to the monster in front of them, keeping her eyes trained on it this time. “I’m out of spells. I only have cantrips left. They won’t do a thing against it.”</p><p class="p1">Midoriya nodded bravely at her. She couldn’t see Asui and Tokoyami anymore, so they were succeeding in at least giving them a head start, but at this point it was hard to feel optimistic.</p><p class="p1">Midoriya’s mouth flattened. “I’m going back in.”</p><p class="p1">Michaela had opened her mouth to respond and the Noumu was on them <em>again. </em>That’s how outclassed she had been in speed this whole battle. She barely saw the punch coming. But Midoriya’s power was already surging through his arm, connecting with the Noumu, then nothing--again.</p><p class="p1">How the Noumu managed to smile with the two brain cells it had to rub together was a wonder to Mel, but ultimately it was nothing compared to what followed.</p><p class="p1">Far above them, a set of doors slammed open.In the smoke, towering figure appeared. It was…she felt her knees go weak. It was All Might. He wasn’t smiling like in the videos she’d seen of him. His mouth was set in a grimace of determination as he cast aside his yellow pinstripe suit jacket.</p><p class="p1">“Have no fear, my students, for I AM HERE.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Michaela, you're not a shounen protagonist, if you try to give long-winded motivational speeches mid-battle, you will get Got.</p><p>-With the disintegrate, Michaela took a very cold, calculated decision on trying to keep witch bolt up. She knew her best shot was to keep Aizawa alive. She knew that even if the damage was on her face, it wouldn’t be more effective than anywhere else on her. She assumed that it would take at least 3 turns to kill her, with her death saves. She knew that her dagger would be all but a sure hit and probably enough to get Shigaraki off her, she just needed a full round.  She was fully in the damage-control mode.</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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